


Hidden Away

by StolenChilde



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Dean-Centric, Domestic, Fluff, Kid Fic, Language, M/M Sex, Multi, Purgatory, Season 7 Spoilers, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-31
Updated: 2012-10-31
Packaged: 2017-11-17 11:12:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 43,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/550937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StolenChilde/pseuds/StolenChilde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Purgatory is nothing, a swirling void of darkness, danger and death. When Dean closes his eyes, exhausted from the never ending struggle to stay alive with an angel who has checked out, he is viscerally aware of Castiel beside him, staring aimlessly into the night that never ends. But when he opens his eyes to sunlight pouring in through a window, a soft bed under him, a life he doesn’t remember with a family he shouldn’t have, and memories of Purgatory clawing at his mind, he begins to wonder just how much more life will try and take from him. Good things don’t just happen… do they?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Heaven is a Place on Earth

**Author's Note:**

> **Acknowledgements:** To my absolutely fabulous, wonderful alpha reader, beta reader, summary provider and (perhaps unwitting) cheerleader [dapperscript](http://dapperscript.livejournal.com/) who is pretty well the most amazing person on the planet for me right now. Well, no, I have two amazing people right now and the other is my incredibly talented artist [siliceb](http://siliceb.livejournal.com/). Her pieces are just fantastic and please, please go tell her how much! It is a joy and an extreme honour to work with the both of you. All the hugs, chocolates and rainbows in the world go to you guys!
> 
> Lastly, thank you to the wonderful Mods at the [deancasbigbang](http://deancasbigbang.livejournal.com/) for having this challenge. This is my first time entering and it was an absolute pleasure.
> 
> Art Masterlist can be found [here](http://siliceb.livejournal.com/2099.html)! Please tell my darling artist how amazing the pictures are!

**Prologue: Heaven is a Place on Earth**

He took sleep when he could, which wasn’t often. But there came a time when his body just gave out and Dean would sleep. Castiel didn’t sleep, and it was probably a good thing he didn’t need to.

For while Dean slept, or while Dean huddled against whatever mockery of a shelter they found that moment, Castiel would be fighting, warding off the creatures that lurked in the dark ready to make Dean and Castiel their next meal. It wasn’t often living flesh wandered into Purgatory and they were salivating at the mere hint of a scent of it.

Dean jolted awake, expecting the familiar sounds of unknown wildlife and night around him. Though those sounds weren’t here now. In fact the only sounds were the very faint clicking of the ceiling fan above his head and a whisper of a breeze floating in through sheer curtains across an open window. Dean looked around, gaping at the unfamiliar room; it was pleasant and clearly not a motel and clearer still, it wasn’t Purgatory.

Was he dreaming? Or did he really make it out? Could it be—But where?

Dean flung the covers free of his legs, stumbling onto hardwood bathed in warm morning sunshine.

“Cas!” Dean called, not even caring that panic cracked through his frantic voice. “Cas?!”

No, not after everything. Castiel couldn’t have—

“Dean?” Castiel rushed into the room, a dishtowel over his shoulder, familiar blue eyes wide with worry. “What is it?”

“Oh God, Cas,” Dean whispered. He stumbled towards the angel, wrapping his arms tight around the familiar frame. Feeling him warm and alive beneath his touch.

Castiel hugged back almost instinctively, and that should have been Dean’s first hint that something was different. Dean was too addled from months spent away in terror to realize though. He just clung harder.

Castiel pulled away, only fractionally, but a whimper escaped Dean’s throat at the movement nonetheless. Castiel frowned deeply and he brought the back of his hand up to Dean’s skin, pressing first to forehead, then cheek, then neck.

Dean watched him, curious and confused.

“Sorry,” Castiel grinned. “I know you said it freaked you out when I did that. Habit. Here, sit down.”

Dean allowed himself to be led over to the bed. He was startled when Castiel switched tactics and, instead of his hand, brought his lips to Dean’s forehead, then either cheek before settling in on his neck.  
Dean shuddered at the touch, warm and genuine like he hadn’t felt in far, far too long. That last night in the Impala hadn’t counted. That was grabbing, teeth and desperate kisses – contact that had been denied for nearly two years.

Castiel curled his lips against Dean’s skin and Dean closed his eyes, breathing out a shaky breath through his open mouth. His body responded to the familiarity.

“Well you don’t feel warm, at least, not feverish,” Castiel said lightly, chuckling softly as he pulled back.

Something was different, a part of Dean understood that without conscious thought, but right now he was just too relieved to be out of the alternate hell which they had been thrown into. It all came back – everything in a rush. That combined with the relief of it being over, Dean just shattered. Shattered in a way he had never really allowed himself to before.

“Cas, Cas. I should have told you this,” Dean stopped, pulled the other man away until he could look him in the eye. “I need to tell you something, I—”

“Dean, what—?” Castiel still looked alarmed.

Before Castiel could continue, Dean jumped in, “I love you, Cas.”

Castiel’s eyes softened and his mouth quirked into an intimate smile. “I love you, too.” Castiel cupped Dean’s jaw in a gentle hand and the tenderness of the gesture sent a jolt down Dean’s spine.

The angel continued, “Look, why don’t you lie down. I’ll finish up with the dishes then be back up to check on you. The boys are off at Bobby’s so you won’t have to worry about them. Just relax, our last little adventure took more out of you than I would have liked.”

“Bobby?” Dean squeaked.

“Yes,” Castiel said carefully. “Dean, what’s—?”

Then it clicked in Dean that this Cas, this one before him was just far, far too different. He was almost human. Oh God. Rescued from Purgatory, having Bobby returned to him only to have Castiel lose his abilities? Castiel had run in the room. He had been carrying a dish towel, dressed in torn jeans with bare feet and a threadbare t-shirt. He spoke different, pressed his hand to Dean’s head to check for a temperature. No, it couldn’t have happened. After _everything._

“Cas,” Dean whispered. “Are you still an angel?”

Castiel’s eyebrows shot to his forehead. “Dean, you know I haven’t been an angel for years.”

Dean shook his head. “No.”

“Dean, Dean!”

“No, not after everything…” Dean was ignoring Castiel’s calls for his attention. Focused in the middle-distance.

“Dean! I’m an archangel, you know this…” Castiel trailed off and flickered his gaze to the ceiling. “Speaking of… I really wish Gabriel would learn to do his own job. He promised me the weekend off,” Castiel grumbled. “I need to go to work, but you just sleep. Maybe the Djinn’s magic is still in your system. I wouldn’t be surprised if you are more susceptible, given how many times you’ve encountered them.” The t-shirt and jeans were replaced instantly with the familiar trench-coat and baggy suit and that settled Dean more than he would have imagined possible.

“Cas! Where—?” Dean tried.

Castiel came back to the bed and sat on the edge, easing Dean down on his back again. “Rest, now. Sam’s here. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Gabriel’s probably just being a dick.”

“No, don’t—”

Castiel placed a gentle hand on Dean’s forehead and the green-eyed hunter felt his eyes grow heavy as he slipped into sleep.

xx

Dean startled awake once more, wondering how he could possibly let himself fall asleep again so close to waking. Castiel was probably working double-time trying to ward off the creatures of the dark. Dean tried to stumble to his feet, but hadn’t been expecting a bed. The sheets twisted around Dean’s legs and he tumbled to the ground, landing hard on his knee and hip. He winced.

Footstep came barrelling towards him and Dean tensed, hand going to his side where he kept the machete tucked away. All he encountered was the bare skin of his torso and soft pajama bottoms.

He was confused but then he remembered earlier. Castiel had disappeared and then forced him to sleep.

“Jesus, Dean. Cas told me that Dijinn was a particularly sadistic bastard using nightmares instead of fantasies but I didn’t imagine he messed you up this bad. Come on, let me get you back in bed. I’ll see if I can come up with the ingredients for the antidote to the toxin. With Mary at Bobby’s, too, I feel like I have too much time on my hands anyway.” It was Sam and Sam was flashing Dean that familiar quirky grin and Dean clung to his little brother’s shirt before Sam could ease him back into bed.

Though like Cas, Sam looked different. Softer, older. His hair was now light and fluffy around his face, but still long and Sam let it fall naturally instead of brushing it into submission and holding it with a ridiculous amount of hair product. It looked good on him. He also had let his stubble grow out to a slight scruff around his chin and jaw, taking away some of his boyishness. His eyes were bright though, and his smile easy and he looked as content as Dean could ever remember seeing him. He looked good.

“Sammy,” Dean whispered. “I really _am_ out.”

Sam shot a faintly puzzled look at Dean, but his lips were still tilted up in a smile. “Yeah, Dude. Man, all right. I’m getting on that antidote like yesterday.”

Would it be that simple? Go to sleep than wake up in this idyllic life, or was it just another cruel, horrible trick of the mind? To check, Dean smacked Sam’s face gently and pulled the taller Winchester into a tight hug. He felt real and solid, carried around the familiar scent of Axe and that weird chocolate shampoo Sam liked. Sam’s arms came up and hugged Dean back, easy and comfortable. Everything was just right, just perfect in the way that these trips into Fantasyland never, ever had gotten right before. This was _Sam._

Suddenly, the tide poured through, the dam in shambles and Dean found himself sagging to the floor again, Sam tumbling with him, fear and surprise in his hazel-green eyes.

Great heaving sobs escaped Dean’s throat as he felt the world true and solid beneath him. Sam was there, Cas was there, he was there. It was all just what he had been dreaming of for months. He wouldn’t waste this opportunity. He wouldn’t let things go unsaid again. There had just been too much he fought against and too much he nearly lost. Fuck chick-flick moments because Castiel and Sam? They needed to _know._

“Sam, Sammy. You’re all right. I’m sorry I let my shit get in the way and didn’t realize what was going on with you. I’m so glad you’re all right,” Dean muttered.

“Dean! My God…” Sam watched in mounting terror as Dean broke in front of him. Sam’s mouth opened and his gaze flashed to the ceiling; a name hovered on his lips but before he could call out, Castiel appeared before them.

“Dean,” Castiel whispered, coming over and freeing Dean from Sam’s arms.

“Oh God, Cas… I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I should have done so much more. I should have known,” Dean cried. “I should never have let you go, never. I should have done more but I just didn’t know. Then I lost you and got you back again, but I _didn’t_ and you were gone under that damn lake and I didn’t try to _do anything_. I was so broken Cas, fuck. So fucking shattered and then I lost Bobby and you were back but you weren’t _you_ and just when we were getting there again, Purgatory happened and I’m so fucking sorry.”

Castiel looked startled, at the speech or the tears, Dean wasn’t clear. The angel ushered Dean over to the bed and in an instant Castiel was in his arms again pressing gentle reassuring kisses to Dean’s wet eyes and trailing down to press a kiss to Dean’s lips.

Sam took this moment to retreat from the room, shutting the door behind him.

Castiel was still kissing him, with gentle hushes and whispers of Dean’s name. Dean whined sharp and high, hating himself for it but it felt so fucking _good._ He didn’t even care. Then Castiel was slowly lowering him back onto the sheets, whispering soothing nonsense into Dean’s skin and Dean’s body hummed with the joy of being back here.

Every touch of Castiel’s lips on Dean’s skin sent fiery frisson through Dean’s entire body as Castiel trailed kisses down Dean’s bare chest, fingers ghosting soft and gentle in all the right spots to have Dean a quivering mess beneath the blue-eyed man.

Dean was soon naked and Castiel wasn’t far behind, Dean gasped out loud and very nearly shouted at the first intimate brush of finger against his prostate, then one, then two, and without little more than that Castiel was sliding deep within Dean’s body, hitting all the right spots with each touch.

He still whispered gentle nonsense against Dean’s skin, seemingly knowing exactly what to do to have Dean at the edge and desperate to jump over in moments. This was different, this was special, intimate in a way Dean never remembered having with Castiel. They had been close once, very nearly this close, but the intensity behind each touch and brush was wholly knew. It was like the first time all over again with all the benefit of the experience to know just exactly what Dean needed. And it had been so damn _long._

Two quick strokes of Castiel’s hand along Dean’s erection and the green-eyed man was rising so high and crashing with such force he felt his eyes burn absurdly. Dean bit it back though, because regardless of the hell he just faced for God knew how many months – years even, with a half-gone angel and fully-gone hope, Dean Winchester did not fucking cry during sex.

Castiel teetered over the edge seconds after Dean and eased himself down across Dean’s chest. Dean lay there, under the comforting and welcome weight and just breathed in Castiel’s scent.


	2. Part One: Domesticity is an Art

**Part One: Domesticity is an Art**

Dean clung to Castiel afterwards, breathing harshly and Castiel, with trepidation, gently lowered a hand over the barely-visible mark on Dean’s shoulder and reached in with a thread of grace. He inched carefully down, Dean’s fingers tightening convulsively where they grasped Castiel’s arms, but Castiel knew it wasn’t pain Dean was feeling. The angel was being far too gentle for pain. When Castiel finally reached Dean’s soul he almost recoiled as if he had been burned. The body felt normal, familiar, but the soul, the soul wasn’t _his_ Dean’s. 

Castiel felt a sharp flash of guilt, almost betrayal, as he realized far too late that he had just made love to not his Dean but another Dean. It was gone though, quickly after. At this stage, after all the trips to other timelines and other places, they knew it wasn’t really betrayal. Dean had his fair share of dalliances with alternate Castiels and wouldn’t be angry at Castiel for this. Castiel hadn’t even known, and he wondered how that had even been possible he hadn’t known. Castiel could see it so clearly, now.

Castiel smiled gently, slowly pulling his hand away and easing to Dean’s side. He brushed a hand comfortingly across Dean’s face and down his arm until he curled their fingers together.

“Dean, are you all right now?” Castiel asked carefully. He knew it was a stupid question; there were so many scars on Dean’s soul that even the faint brush Castiel just gave it was enough to tell. He had to be careful though, this Dean was spooked enough and Castiel didn’t want to cause further harm. 

“I… I don’t… Are you all right?” Dean asked suddenly, shifting to his side, his eyes – clearer than Castiel had seen them since he woke – dancing around Castiel’s face. He reached up a hand, cupped the angel’s cheek and peered into his eyes.

“You seem better,” Dean added softly. A smile quirked his lips, “Not crazy anymore.”

“Yes, I… Feel better,” Castiel said hesitantly. Crazy?

“Man, I don’t… That was pretty intense, huh?” Dean asked. “I suppose that’s a normal reaction from being snatched out of Purgatory and dropped into Stepford. You’re all right, though? No more bees or desire to free any monkeys? Or you know, unholy lust for Meg?” At the last one Dean scowled deeply. Then he lightened his feature again before saying, “We can get a cat though, if you still want one of those. Anything you want, Cas.”

“I…” Castiel had absolutely no idea what to say. He had grown pretty proficient at fibbing over the years and telling half-truths. Even good at placating others, but Dean’s wholly bizarre speech left him at loss. Bees, monkeys, _Meg_ of all creatures? All right, this definitely wasn’t Castiel’s Dean and each passing second only cemented that fact further. 

“It’s cool, maybe you’re having a moment too. I guess Sammy settled down after we went away and maybe this is his place? That would be awesome. Dude, you won’t believe what I thought when I woke up. I swear you said something about the boys and being an archangel and Gabriel. Gabriel’s been dead for years. Maybe my mind was playing tricks trying to settle itself back. I mean when you pulled me out of Hell, I wasn’t nearly that messed up but you probably fixed some things when you did that, right? You had to rebuild me. This time though my body was fine so I guess switching from one realm to another drove a few screws loose. Sex, Man. It’s a cure-all. Shoulda tried that on you when I got you back, huh?”

Castiel’s stomach was sinking with each word. Purgatory. _Purgatory._ If this was another Castiel’s Dean, then was his Dean in _Purgatory._ Oh Father, no. 

Castiel had to figure this out and fast. He also would have to explain it to Dean before the kids got back. Especially John. It would frighten him terribly. Castiel just had to figure out _what_ he was explaining. Also, unfortunately, there was only one person on the Earth (currently on the Earth at any rate. Usually in Heaven) who had any workable knowledge of Purgatory. The Being who built it and the Being Castiel wanted to see the least in the world. He had not in any way forgiven his Father, but He was good to the boys and Mary. Just this once, to figure this out, Castiel needed to make an exception.

“Dean, I think perhaps it may have affected you more than me. I need to go… I need to do some research and make sure that you’ll be all right. Will you stay? Here in bed, I mean. Sam’s still here. If you need anything, please call him.”

“Cas,” Dean’s calm was breaking slightly, Castiel heard that in the quiver of Dean’s voice. The angel wasn’t entirely sure if Dean was as well as he sounded, and suspected that Dean was just putting on a brave front because of his concern for Castiel, who had apparently been in Purgatory as well – and crazy, so it seemed. Castiel didn’t know what could possibly drive an angel mad but would ask questions later when he had some answers to give.

“You’re safe, Dean,” Castiel said gently as Dean’s hand flung out to snag the angel’s hand as the blue-eyed creature rose from the bed. “I’ll be back. I promise.”

“Okay,” Dean nodded.

“All right,” Castiel nodded back. “I know I’ve been telling you this a lot, but do try to sleep. I’m sure you need it.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Dean grinned.

“All right,” Castiel leaned forward and kissed Dean gently without thought. It was habit, long ingrained and Castiel wondered if crossing that boundary was something he should have avoided. Dean, though, didn’t seem to mind in the least and returned the gentle peck, before allowing Castiel to rise to his feet and gesture his clothes back on.

“All right,” Castiel said again, now suddenly hesitant to leave. “All right,” a fourth time and Castiel nodded sharply, vanishing.

Dean watched the space where Castiel had been, a heavy weight settling in his stomach. He understood this was real now but this was still different. Dean felt a strange sense of being out of place and though he told Castiel he would rest (who was acting strange, now that Dean could think coherently) he eased himself out of bed and wandered over to the half open closet where he caught a glimpse of a mirror on the interior door. He hesitantly pulled the door open and peered at his reflection…

Dean blinked. He didn’t look any different. He moved closer to the mirror and frowned, then he noticed the changes, miniscule but there. He had a few more lines around his eyes, a few more freckles along his cheeks and nose and his hair looked as if someone had desaturated it. It was still light brown but now it was a little mousier, not grey yet but maybe in a few more years. He was older. He couldn’t tell by how much, but he could see it.

“Well shit,” Dean muttered. He supposed that could explain the homestead and Castiel’s difference towards him. 

The last few occasions he time-travelled, it wasn’t anywhere pleasant and Dean wondered if this was another lesson by some sadistic angel, or if maybe… Castiel had been mentioning that he may be able to get them out if he got the right things together. Maybe he had managed but given his relative state of mind, maybe he overshot. That would explain Dean’s confusion but the Castiel that just left here was definitely the Castiel from _this_ time. Dean bit his lip, reached in blindly to snag a folded pair of jeans and a button down and slipped them on. The jeans were tight on his hips, the button barely going together. He stared down at them and realized they must be Castiel’s. Which meant they shared a room, which meant they weren’t just fuck-buddies. Which meant _commitment._ Dean swallowed.

He shucked out of the jeans, leaving them in a pile on the floor and reached in again to the opposite side of the closet this time and checked the size. He slipped them on and crept out of the room. 

The hallway of the house was a light taupe colour. The floors were hardwood, the décor nondescript. A few landscapes hung on the wall, one image of a pack of running wolves against a snowy backdrop. No family photos. That didn’t really surprise him. The Winchesters never had really been the type to put family photos up in corridors. John kept most of his photos in an old box and Mary had kept a few on her bedside table and a few on the mantel.

The house was quiet; Castiel had mentioned Sam was still around but Dean couldn’t tell where. On the other end of the hallway there was a bathroom and another shut door. There was also a door leading down to what was probably the basement, off of the kitchen. The house was only a single storey. Dean eased out of the hallway towards the front door and was relieved to see his familiar keychain sitting on a scarred table near the entrance.

On the floor by the door were Sam’s oversized boots, a pair of runners that that could have belonged to either Dean or Castiel, and then Dean’s boots. Sockless, Dean attempted the shoes and found they fit well enough. Dean chanced a glance behind him before opening the front door. He stepped onto the small porch and was glad to see his Impala well-kept and gleaming in the early afternoon sunshine. 

Dean swung the keys around his index finger, wondering exactly where he was planning on going but maybe not even planning on going anywhere. Dean hopped down the steps and made his way to his car, pausing and whistling low when he caught site of the gorgeous blue ’68 Mustang sitting at the top of the driveway just in front of a badass old Chevy truck that must have been Sam’s. Sam and Dad both had a fondness for trucks over cars. Sam probably because he was a giant and Dad was a Kansas boy at heart. Trucks were in his blood. Dean couldn’t figure who the Mustang belonged to but decided to get a closer look and wandered up the driveway. He peered into the windows and froze when he saw something seat-shaped and plastic in the back.

“What the…” Dean muttered, peering closer and trying the doors. Locked of course. He looked down at his keychain and saw to his amazement quite a few extra keys resting there and only one car-like key that didn’t belong to the Impala. Shrugging, Dean tried it and it slid home in the lock. Dean opened the door and leaned over the seat, freezing when he better saw what he had caught a glimpse of earlier – a baby’s car seat.

Dean backed up slowly and ran to the truck; there was another car seat, this one looked a little larger though. All right, all right… Sam had a wife. Mustang was probably hers. Mary. Mary at Bobby’s. Sam had said that. Dean figured it was far too oedipal for the wife to be Mary so maybe they had a daughter and had named her after their mom. That was a Sam-thing for sure. Maybe Dean and Castiel were visiting Sam and his wife? No, the closet was too full for a visit. Maybe Sam and the wife were visiting Dean and Castiel. Why two cars, then? Dean frowned. Work maybe?

Maybe Baby would help him puzzle this out or maybe the Impala had a clue or two in her comforting confines. Dean nodded, and headed back over to the Impala. He unlocked it and froze with his hand on the door handle, before wrenching the door open and gaping into the back. _Another_ car seat. This one looked about the same size as the one in the Mustang.

_The boys are at Bobby’s, so you don’t have to worry about them._

“Boys,” Dean squeaked, backing away from the car. Bobby. _Bobby_!

Dean raced back to the house and looked around for a coat rack or hat-stand. Nothing but a door. All right, closet. Awesome. Dean opened the door and looked in at the mess of coats. Different genders, different sizes and… Dean flipped through them, looking for something familiar. He saw his dad’s old jacket and breathed out shakily digging into the pockets. Empty.

“Damnit,” Dean cursed. He didn’t see his new jacket either. 

“Phone, phone, phone,” Dean muttered. Beside table. Right. Smart place for it. Dean kicked off the runners and walked quickly back down the hallway. He entered the bedroom he had left only minutes ago and saw the bedside table free of a phone.

“Damnit!”

Looking around again his eyes landed on the dresser against the wall.

“Awesome,” Dean remarked, a ridiculously thin looking device that _could_ be a phone was sitting next to a few bottles of cologne.

He picked it up and poked at it. He flipped it over and around looking for a button and finding a small nub at the top of the device. He almost recoiled when a little robot pranced across the screen then the device settled into what must have been a home screen. Dean’s own face was staring out at him. Dean quirked a brow and poked at the screen again.

“Where are the fucking buttons?” Dean grumbled. After far too long fiddling, Dean managed to find the address book and was startled to see the number was Bobby’s old one. Dean pressed it and hit send.

“Cas, everything all right?” Bobby answered after a few quick rings.

“It’s Dean,” Dean answered quickly.

“Why you using the Feathers’ phone? Never mind… Dean, the boys are fine. You don’t have to call every ten minutes with your friggin’ fool-hard worries. I may be old, but I ain’t an idjit. I can take care of a few kids. They’re fine… Besides, not that I _need_ the help, but Jody’s here. She said she wanted some baby snuggles, whatever the hell that means. Women. Anyway, they’re great. I’ll have ‘em back to you Sunday night, just like we said. Enjoy you damn time off for a change.” Bobby hung up without so much as a goodbye. 

Dean felt close to tears at Bobby’s familiar gruffness, but that didn’t mean he was any less clueless. Dean dropped the phone back onto the desk and walked numbly over to the bed, slumping down at the edge. Kids. Babies. _Jesus._

“Dean.”

Dean’s head shot up towards Castiel’s voice and the angel smiled sympathetically. He came over and sat next to Dean on the edge of the bed.

“I gather you’ve realized…”

“I don’t belong here,” Dean whispered back. “I’m not… I don’t… What the hell Cas? Kids? Fucking _kids_? I mean what the hell?”

“I… apologize for earlier, Dean. I hadn’t realized until after that you weren’t my… That you were different.”

“Huh?” Dean frowned.

“Our… intimacy,” Castiel answered uneasily.

“What? Oh,” Dean waved that off. “Sex. Yeah. No that part’s fine. Not exactly the first time there, Flyboy. I feel bad for you about that, actually … He won’t… I won’t… _Your_ Dean won’t be mad, will he? Jesus, I hope he isn’t where I came from. God,” Dean looked with wide-eyes at Castiel.

“No, my Dean won’t be mad. I gather from his colourful description that he had more fun in the alternate timeline than he let on originally,” Castiel replied wryly.

Dean flushed, remembering. “Ah… yeah. I… he, we? Oh this is fucked up. I went there too, so yeah… No the…” Dean shook his head slowly, gesturing around. “ _This._ The house, the kids, the shared-living space… It’s weird. _Really_ weird. Especially considering the year I just had and to be here with you… Yeah. It’s something all right.”

“Also, rest assured, my… contact informed me that my Dean would not have gone where you came from. I suppose he’s… on ice… As it were.”

“Contact? Hey! You mentioned Gabriel, earlier, is he alive?” Dean asked.

“Oh! Yes, he is. We found out a few years ago. Since then he’s taken over duties in Heaven… Well, he’s taken over being the figure-head at any rate. Most of the time his duties fall to me,” Castiel grumbled. 

“So he was who you saw? Can he get me back? Oh, wait, can _you_ get me back? Well… not back, back. I sure as shit don’t want to go back to…” Dean trailed off, shuddering a little. “But if my Cas is…” Dean swallowed. “I need to get back.”

“I… Dean, I can’t and Gabriel wasn’t who I saw. Gabriel doesn’t know much about Purgatory. Only one Being, aside from the monsters who have been there, knows about it.”

“Wait… huh?” Dean frowned. “Who is that then…?”

Castiel gave Dean a significant look.

“Oh. Oh! You mean… You don’t mean you went to see _God_?”

“I… yes, I went to visit my Father. The first time I had spoken to Him in several years, actually. He and I don’t exactly… Get along. I could have sworn He wanted to… to _hug_ me. It was very off-putting…” Castiel frowned.

“Dude, man… Wow. I can’t believe you actually found him,” Dean shook his head. “That’s… Great?”

Castiel grimaced. “Not… really. I wasn’t who found him anyway, John did, by accident.”

“Who’s John?” Dean asked. “Not my dad…”

Castiel looked sad at the question and Dean swallowed again, heavily. Was his father…?

“No, John’s our son. Eldest son. It’s so strange for you to not know that. I’m sorry,” Castiel shook himself. “Yes, John’s our eldest son. He’s eleven. Then we have Jasper who is just over a year now.”

“We named the first one after my dad, huh? That’s… Yeah,” Dean nodded dumbly. “Ah… weird question, Man, but how?”

“How what?” Castiel asked.

“How did we get a kid… Two kids. Did we adopt? I find that a little… er… unlikely. Jesus Christ. _Kids._ Sorry, Man. This is taking a little more to wrap my head around than I thought. This whole thing… I mean just last night I was shivering against some big ass rock while you fought off these freaky Purgatory beast things. But, let’s not worry about that. Ah, so God… yeah, he sent me here then? Did he tell you why? Some sort of lesson or did he overshoot my timeline? Oh and hey, where can we find him, might need him to fix my Cas.”

“Dean, just wait a moment. You seem to be taking this awfully well… Too well,” Castiel gave the green-eyed man an anxious look.

Dean shrugged, “Not my first round of time-hopping. I think I may be screaming on the inside a little right now, but I’m trying to focus on what we can work with. Freaking out won’t get us anywhere… Except maybe back in bed.” Dean shot Castiel a suggestive look but the angel just rolled his eyes.

“Dude, did you just roll your eyes at me?” Dean asked.

“Yes, I do that now,” Castiel’s eyes sparkled a little. “Dean, listen for a moment. I understand you may be feeling… Out of sorts and please don’t feel you have to hide that from me, all right?”

“No, Cas, really, I’m awesome. I was real messed up this morning but I’m great now. So yeah, God. He’s gonna send me back, right?”

Castiel was not at all convinced and Dean probably realized this but both of them chose to ignore it for the time being. 

Castiel sighed and finally answered, “No, it wasn’t Him. Not the Him of this timeline at any rate. He’s not actually sure why you’ve been sent here or what happened. This timeline that you’re now in is new. It hasn’t existed until this morning. I suppose, your timeline was so very different than mine that an alternate future was necessary. I… He’s going to see what He can find out, Dean, but you may just have to ride this out until you discover whatever you are meant to discover.”

“New,” Dean said flatly. “It’s _new_. How can it be _new_? He’s fucking God, Cas, he’s supposed to _know_ everything! What the hell?”

“Dean—”

“I mean seriously, for— Shit… Can’t even say that. For _whatever’s_ sake, after everything, _everything_ we’ve gone through, now I get plucked out of my own time and thrust into one that didn’t even exist until I got here? How is that fair? We got Dick, we didn’t spring open the portal again like Cas did, it was just some fucking backlash, we went through fucking _hell… I_ went through hell… again. God, I thought I lost Cas and then Bobby and nearly Sam and now Cas is crazy and alone in some godforsaken land with godforsaken creatures, clamouring for his blood and I’m _here_ for whatever reason when Cas could be getting killed!” Dean’s fury had bled out from him with his speech and now he just sagged listless on the bed.

Castiel gaped at him, shocked by the sudden ramble and more shocked at what he heard.

“What? What do you mean I opened Purgatory and you lost me? I… That didn’t happen… And Bobby? Sam? Dean _what_ happened in your timeline?”

Dean turned his sad gaze on the angel and shook his head, closing his eyes tight. “No, never mind. It’s too much, I can’t go through it again. Please, don’t ask. Not right now, all right?”

Castiel nodded slowly, trying to process everything Dean said and trying to make sense of it. It wasn’t happening, he didn’t have nearly enough information and though he could reach in easily enough and pull out the details he needed, he wouldn’t break that trust. Not with this Dean. He had to remind himself that, despite appearances, this Dean was from elsewhere and elsewhere was a horror show by the sounds of it. Castiel was never more grateful for his quiet life with Dean, Sam, Mary and the boys. Right. Dean’s asked.

“Divine intervention,” Castiel said, apropos of nothing.

Dean snorted. “Suppose I could use some right now. Gonna lay some on me?”

“What?” Castiel frowned, then shook his head quickly, understanding. “No, no. You asked how we got the boys. We didn’t adopt, they’re ours, flesh, blood, soul and grace. My Father… gifted us with them is the best way of putting it.” 

Dean gawked for nearly a full thirty seconds before roaring out, “What the hell for?”

“What?” Castiel backed up at the force of the words. Oh God, Dean didn’t want…?

“I mean what did I do to deserve such a thing?” Dean smiled bitterly, “Something I heard recently fits kinda well right now… ‘The very touch of [me] corrupts,’ why in the world would God do something like that for me? Give me what I always wanted, even if I didn’t realize? I just… I don’t understand.”

“Dean, you saved the world,” Castiel said simply, not understanding Dean’s confusion. Castiel had not seen this level of self-deprecation in the green-eyed hunter since the first year after he was pulled from Perdition. Surely Dean, three years removed from that now, would be more self-assured than this. Castiel’s Dean was, without a question.

“Who would have ever told you such an awful thing?”

Dean looked up, eyes dark. “Hester… Old friend of yours as I understand it.”

“ _Hester_?! You’ve encountered Hester? How? Why? Why would she have that to say about you? She’s a gentle creature at heart.”

“She was saying that because of what I did to you,” Dean said quietly. “I broke you, Man. You don’t get it, I _shattered_ you. You. Are. Insane. And that ain’t figurative. I turned my back when you needed me the most because of a lame-ass little reason: You hurt my feelings. I gave up. I let you go and you got lost and I couldn’t get you back. My time? It’s dark, Cas. So no, I see absolutely no reason why God would want to reward me for anything, because I _broke_ his favourite toy and the dream-house too.”

Dean waited for the ‘I don’t understand that reference’ but it never came.

“Dean,” Castiel said, soft and gentle, hand coming up to cup the other man’s jaw and cheek, “is the world still standing? Where you’re from. Is it still there?”

“Well yeah, unless tragedy stuck within the last… Actually I don’t even know, but I’m pretty sure.”

“Me? Am I alive? And with you?”

“Now you are,” Dean said quietly.

“Then stop.”

Dean frowned.

“Stop it, you hear me? Cut the bullshit,” Castiel said idly.

Dean gawped.

“Dean, I can’t begin to understand your world. It seems so very different than the past I remember, but I know you and you are the same in every incarnation, no matter what. Your soul doesn’t change, just your experiences. It’s still just as bright as it has ever been, a little bruised and scarred, but no less bright, I promise you that. So, enough of this woefully self-indulgent pity-party, and get off your ass and into the shower. You’re going to help me clean the house and then I’m going to tell you all about our beautiful boys.” Castiel rose and headed to the door, pausing and turning with a raised eyebrow to the still stationary Dean.

“Well…?”

Dean flickered his lashes, snapped his head around and nodded dumbly. “Yeah, Dude. I just need a sec to wrap my head around… This.” Dean opened his hands helplessly at Castiel, framed innocently in the doorway.

“You just gestured to all of me,” Castiel said wryly.

“And now he’s quoting kids movies… Okay… Wow,” Dean said mostly to himself.

“Dean, we have an eleven year old boy and Mary is four. _How to Train Your Dragon_ is a family favourite, despite it being several years old now. Now please get up. You still smell like sex. Just because you aren’t _my_ Dean, doesn’t mean you get out of his chores, nor are you allowed to ignore personal hygiene.”

“Gee, guess I know who the wife in this relationship is,” Dean muttered, pushing himself to his feet.

Castiel smirked, “Actually, we’ve no defined and ridiculous gender roles in this house… However, if you do insist on labelling us, I would be considered the breadwinner and you the homemaker… Just food for thought.” Castiel disappeared down the hall without a backward glance.

Dean found himself grinning. Oh yeah, he was so getting one of those, no matter _what_ he had to do to make it work for his Cas in his own timeline.

Dean opted to shower after he helped Castiel clean and Castiel conceded his point. Dean was probably nowhere near as efficient as Castiel was used to. Dean actually found himself a little clumsy with the tasks, but they got it done fairly quickly anyway. 

The house was comfortable but not terribly large and they only had to contend with the boys’ room and the main floor. Sam handled Mary’s room and was responsible for the basement. 

Dean was ridiculously happy for Sam and kept grinning to himself every time he thought of his little brother finally getting a family and being settled down. Dean knew that right now it wasn’t what Sam wanted in his timeline, not anymore, but the thought that it was going to happen in the future made Dean feel lighter than he had in a while. Also, as he tucked the last dish away in the cupboard, he felt a strong sense of accomplishment. Pride almost. This was _his_ house. That he and Castiel cleaned together, lived in together and celebrated together. It was perfect.

“So, Sam and his wife are visiting for a while?” Dean asked, turning around and leaning against the now sparkling clean counter.

Castiel paused, the trash-bag half pulled from the bin as he shot Dean a quizzical look. “What?”

Dean frowned back. “Sammy, he has a kid so I’m assuming he finally found a girl that made him want to settle down again. I mean, I didn’t catch a gleam of a ring on his finger but Sam’s never been a jewellery guy so I’m not really surprised. And since you said Sam was gonna handle the cleaning of the other rooms, I figured he’s staying long enough to be out of guest territory. His wife going to be at dinner?”

“Dean,” Castiel said carefully. “Sam lives here and doesn’t have a wife.”

“Oh man, divorce, huh? Dude, that’s rough. He take it all right? It didn’t happen too long ago, did it?” 

“Dean, Sam’s _never_ had a wife and has always lived here. Mary was… a surprise.”

“What?” Dean asked flatly. Surprise meant being irresponsible and Sam had his moments, sure, but never with something that serious. Maybe the girlfriend hadn’t been too pleased with it, or the strain of adding a baby to the relationship had been too much. It happened. Dean knew that well enough.

“So his girlfriend couldn’t handle it, or she wasn’t the marrying type? Did they try and make it work at least? I guess Mary just visits, huh? Pretty sure with our lives and record Sam would only get partial custody. Which sucks but is unders—”

“Dean, sit down for a minute,” Castiel suggested, interrupting.

“Uh oh,” Dean replied, but sat.

“No, don’t worry about it, please. I just need you to understand the situation before the children come home,” Castiel said.

“Situation?”

“Yes, before Mary was born, Sam was going through a bit of a rough time. It would have been a big anniversary for Sam and Jessica had she survived and they stayed together. Anyway, Sam wasn’t handling it too well and he went out one night to help get his mind off of things. He went to a strip club, of all places, got plied with far too much alcohol and ended up sleeping with one of the dancers that night – Nikki. Anyway, he came home, nursed his hangover and that was the end of it or—”

“Sam slept with a _stripper_?” Dean interrupted, shocked.

“Yes, well, not his finest moment, but that’s not the end of the story… Anyway, ten months later he received a phone call, from Nikki and she said it was urgent that they meet. She gave him no further details than that. Sam, we both know his character and what type of a man he is, drove out there immediately, no questions. He met Nikki at a coffee shop, she handed him a bundle and a piece of paper and left with the parting suggesting that he get a paternity test done if he liked, but the ‘thing was his’ were her words if I recall the tale correctly. She also soundly informed him not to bother coming after her for anything because it wouldn’t work and that was that. Sam came home, in complete shock with a new baby girl, and we’ve never heard from Nikki again. 

“Mary didn’t even have a name when Sam brought her home. Mary’s mother has absolutely nothing to do with her life. Sam has been in the process of contacting Mary’s maternal grandmother though, who has expressed some interest in getting to know her granddaughter. We don’t discuss Mary’s mother or bring up the circumstances surrounding her birth – she’s very sensitive about it.”

Dean was slowly shaking his head, staring off at nothing as he said quietly, “Poor Sammy and his little girl, God Cas, I can’t imagine…”

“Well Sam is a fantastic father, he did learn from the best after all,” here Castiel winked at Dean (actually _winked_ ) and continued, “she isn’t lacking for anything. She’s very well-adjusted, considering. You don’t need to worry, I just thought you should understand.”

Dean nodded. “Yeah, I needed to know that. Who knows what I would have said around her if you hadn’t told me?” Dean shuddered at the thought.

xx

Dean actually forgot what being happy felt like. He remembered it now, though. He was laying on the couch with his head in Castiel’s lap, staring at the television and watching reruns of Doctor Sexy. Which was weird, because they weren’t actually reruns to Dean and according to Castiel the show had been off air for the last few years. Regardless, he was lying on the couch, while Castiel read above him – the old fashioned way, thank God. If the angel got digital, Dean figured he’d just give up on life right there. 

Sammy was on the chair next the couch, zoned out, watching the mindless drivel without blinking. They had a nice quiet dinner of chicken, potatoes, and asparagus, spending most of it discussing the kids. 

Now that they were winding down, Dean yawned widely, his jaw cracking, he was surprised how tired just cleaning could make him.

Castiel smiled fondly. “Bedtime, I think.”

“Nng,” Sam grunted noncommittally, startled out of his stupor by Castiel’s voice. Sam shook himself. “Ah, yeah… I think that’s a great idea, for me too.” 

Sam had taken the news that Dean was his brother from thirteen years in the past surprisingly well. He sat, listened, said ‘huh’ then asked if Dean wanted ice cream on his pie. Best little brother _ever._

“I really don’t want to move,” Dean admitted sleepily. “I haven’t felt like this since… Since…”

“A long time, I’m sure,” Castiel said gently. He ran a soft hand through Dean’s hair and put his book aside. He startled Dean by shifting and lifting him swiftly into his arms.

“Gah!” Dean shouted. “Dude!”

Sam rolled his eyes as Dean struggled futilely before the taller Winchester waved a hand and disappeared downstairs.

“You said you didn’t want to move,” Castiel said lightly.

“Okay, you carrying me is really embarrassing,” Dean squawked.

Castiel chuckled. “I’m going to keep doing it. You need to relax, Dean. Just let me help you with that, will you? I don’t know why you’re here with us, but I will take every opportunity I have to see you smile like the Dean I know.”

“Walking isn’t going to stress me beyond fixing,” Dean grumbled but relaxed, only to squawk again when Castiel dumped him unceremoniously on the bed.

Castiel looked nervous suddenly, biting his lip. “Um… I can leave you to the bed for the night if you’d rather. I know you may not be used to this. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable and I don’t need to sleep, as you know.”

Dean rolled his eyes now. “Get your ass in bed, Cas. We already fucked, I hardly think sharing space it going to change much.”

Castiel smiled, relieved. “All right. I don’t need to sleep, but I must confess I do enjoy it, especially next to you.” The last was said so plainly with no airs or sly looks that Dean found his breath stolen from him. He felt a warm flush crawl up his skin and looked down, embarrassed. He swallowed and nodded, scooting out of his jeans and tossing his over-shirt aside before crawling under the covers.

Despite how tired he was, Dean lay awake for a very long time, still finding it utterly hard to believe that _this_ was actually his life. That he could have _everything_ he wanted, that he may still get it, if he could repair his own timeline. Maybe that’s why he was here, to find out how to fix things. Dean had tried asking for details, but Castiel, ever the keeper of the celestial order, had been wary of revealing too much to Dean and hadn’t offered many.

xx

Dean woke up the next morning to golden sunlight streaming into the room. He was ridiculously comfortable and warm and so content that he thought he was asleep still. He shifted slightly, feeling a warm weight pressed to his back and thought for one heart-pounding second that he was still at Lisa’s, and thought it strange how much that thought filled him with dread. But the room wasn’t hers and he was on the opposite side of the bed facing the doorway, and the body against him was lean but firm and flat, not the softness of Lisa’s body. Then he remembered and he breathed out a rush of relief. _Cas._

Dean turned, until he was facing Castiel. The angel murmured faintly and easily adjusted his arms in his sleep, turning slightly more on his back as Dean changed their position. Dean just watched him, quiet and peaceful, looking much younger in his sleep than he had any right to look this far in the future.

Castiel blinked open bright blue eyes and smiled crookedly. Leaning forward, he stole a kiss before relaxing back and closing his eyes again. Then he shot awake once more and looked sheepish.

“Dean? Sorry about that, are you still…?” Castiel let the sentence hang.

“I’m still past-me,” Dean said with a little smile. “It’s cool though.”

“I like past you,” Castiel said cheekily.

The colour trained from Dean’s face in an instant at that, flashing back to the Apocalyptic future Zachariah had marooned him in, and a Castiel half-stoned out of his mind and nearly fully human. Dean let out a shaky breath and scooted closer to the angel, wrapping his arms around the other man’s slightly smaller frame and burying his head in the jut of Castiel’s shoulder.

Castiel seemed startled, but hugged back easily. “Dean?”

“Sorry, just… I tell you much about 2014 where Sammy was…”

“Yes,” Castiel nodded slowly. “I don’t underst—”

“Just something the you of that timeline said back then. It’s okay, though. Just surprised me a little. Maybe I’m still a little jittery from my trip here.”

“Oh… are you all right, though?”

Dean pulled back. “Yeah, I’m good. Feel like I’m taking advantage of you a little, but I’m good.”

“Taking advantage?” Castiel shook his head quickly. “Why would yo—”

“I don’t have this, you know… closeness in my timeline, I don’t really have anyone for these… moments but I know you aren’t gonna push me away or judge me so I guess I feel like I’m taking advantage of that. I mean I had Lisa for a while but…” Dean shrugged. 

He was a physical person, anyone who knew him, knew that. He didn’t like words too much, but casual touches, an arm on the shoulder, a squeeze in passing, the occasional fond bump as he passed someone or sat next to them. Ruffling Sam’s hair or just sitting or standing with his knee or shoulders pressed against Castiel. He did it all. But a hug like that? Of comfort, compassion? He steered clear of that. Sam wasn’t nearly as physically affectionate as Dean and Castiel was… Well _Castiel._

Castiel’s face closed off a little at the mention of the brunette woman and he nodded stiffly. “Yes, well, please don’t feel like you’re taking advantage. I imagine I would miss it if you stopped.”

“Hey… ah, Cas, that whole Lisa thing, did that happen here too?” Dean asked hesitantly; he didn’t like the look in Castiel’s eye at the question.

Castiel nodded tightly. “It was partly my fault, I should have stayed. I caused you to act how you otherwise wouldn’t when I visited and I regretted it. It was only inevitable she found it out and not at all in a pleasant way for any of the parties involved. We had been so careful but took advantage of a situation we thought we were in, while paying no attention to the consequences.”

Dean frowned. “Huh? She found out you wiped her memory?”

“What?” Castiel frowned back.

“Wait, what are you talking about?” 

“Lisa found out you were being unfaithful, and with me no less. She didn’t take it too kindly. I visited a handful of times, never intending for there to be any dalliances, but sometimes it just happened. She was at her sister’s one weekend with Ben but returned early because Ben got the flu. She walked into your bedroom and found you with me.”

Dean shook his head slowly. “Dude, in my timeline I didn’t see you for more than a _year_ after you left. Believe me, there were no _dalliances_ of any kind.”

“But surely… I came to you for help with Raphael and that’s when it began. I didn’t do that in your timeline?”

Dean scrunched up his nose as he thought. “Well, the details are a little fuzzy, I only managed to get them out of you in Purgatory and, well, you aren’t really yourself. I think my Cas showed up looking for help but Crowley found him instead. Something tipped Cas then and he just went off.”

Castiel took that in for a moment then said, “Crowley did come but not until later and I did take the fifty-thousand-souls from him, but when he suggested Purgatory I talked to you about it before we agreed to anything and you shot it down. We worked it out ourselves. It wasn’t easy, but we managed… Poor Balthazar was killed because of it and I continue to blame myself for his death, but we stopped Raphael. Crowley did open Purgatory but we well… Shoved him in the hole before anything could come out,” Castiel smirked at the last part. Then remarked casually, “As far as I know, Meg is running Hell now.”

Dean shook his head. “Well, we certainly know now where the paths split.” Dean wasn’t about to relay to Castiel that in his timeline Cas was the one who killed Balthazar with his own hands. That was unfair and unnecessary. Dean was certainly curious about one thing though.

“Oh hey, who raised Sam, you or Crowley or God?” Dean wanted to know.

“Crowley. I made the attempt but when I realized Sam’s soul would be left behind, I tried to come up with another way. I didn’t make it back in time. Crowley had raised Sam soulless and your grandfather brought down to assist him in locating Purgatory. We didn’t realize Sam was back until after Lisa kicked you out.”

“Oh,” Dean said quietly. “Um… so the wall, it’s still intact then?”

“That Death constructed? Of course. Gabriel reinforced it when he returned about four years ago. I’d hate to think if it got broken. Sam would probably be dead,” Castiel’s face went white at the thought.

Dean didn’t say anything more, just shook his head again and looked down at the sheets pooled on his lap. If only in his timeline he tried harder to help Cas instead of dealing with his own personal drama. If only he left Lisa earlier instead of hanging onto the idyllic fantasy life he pretended he wanted when he was with her. Maybe then, none of what had happened the last two years would have happened.

“Did it… happen differently in your timeline?” Castiel asked hesitantly.

Dean’s smile was strained. “Ye...” he croaked before clearing his throat, “Yeah. Little bit.”

“Oh.”

After a few minute of quiet, Dean asked, “Hey, Cas?”

“Mmm?”

“After Lucifer, after you healed me and brought Bobby back, what happened? Did you leave right away, or did we…”

“I left right away,” Castiel said sadly. “I regretted every second of it and after Raphael, well… kicked my ass, to put it mildly – I came straight to you. You were alone in the house and you cleaned the blood off, then we… Ah… made-up. You were rather irritated at me for leaving without a goodbye and I tried my best to apologize.”

Dean nodded. “So I was with her then? Like with her, with her?”

“As far as I’m aware yes,” Castiel shifted uncomfortably. “If it makes you feel any better, you did at least try to stop but you changed your mind fairly quickly.”

Dean was feeling guilty about something he hadn’t even done. It was pretty out of character for him to cheat; he may have been a little fast and loose when he was in his twenties, but when he was in a relationship he was pretty faithful. Then again, it was hard to say really which one he was cheating on, Cas or Lisa? Castiel and him didn’t technically break-up. They had been together for several months when the entire Lucifer fiasco was happening, then Castiel went back to Heaven and Dean went off to Lisa’s. 

Dean could easily admit now that Lisa had really just been a substitute. A representation of a life Sam thought Dean wanted. Dean couldn’t blame Sam for assuming so. He and Cas kept their relationship a secret. After losing Sam and making that damn promise, then to top it off with Cas leaving, Dean very nearly convinced himself he wanted the life with Lisa, too.

When he thought he lost Cas, that hit him way harder than giving up Lisa ever did. That’s not to say he wasn’t upset when his relationship with Lisa went south, but he managed to deal. Cas though, when he thought Cas was gone forever, with no take-backs, Dean was… ‘wobbly’ was the term Sam used to describe it, and it was pretty accurate. Dean carried the damned, dirty trench coat around for _months,_ bundled neatly and shifted from car to car as they ran. Then Dean saw him again, real and tangible and it was like all the air got sucked out of Dean’s body, especially at the little wife pronouncement. That had hurt more than Dean tended to admit to himself. Cas wasn’t himself though, he was someone else entirely and for just a little while Dean could speak to him again. 

Then Castiel remembered, and as much as it was a good thing it also brought all the betrayed feelings back to the surface. So, yeah, he had been colder than he should have to Castiel, but the guy had broken his brother for Christ’s sake, Dean figured he was allowed. When Cas took on Sam’s pain though, it was forgiven a little bit, but then Castiel woke up completely shattered and Dean’s guilt warred with his pain.

It wasn’t until he was about to die that he realized he was being ridiculous. He made it up to Castiel right there in the back of the Impala, just like old times, before they marched to their deaths. Which didn’t actually happen, but what did happen was so much worse. Dean shuddered and prayed to every deity and angel he believed in that Castiel wasn’t still stuck there alone.

“Dean,” Castiel began hesitantly again, “Please don’t beat yourself up over our situation back then. For one, _you_ had nothing to do with it, and for another, you weren’t actually happy with Lisa. I mean I’m not excusing what we did with that, but… I actually don’t know how to finish that. It’s in the past, though, and it can’t be changed now.”

“Huh?” Dean blinked. Oh, Lisa, right. Even now, Dean was dwelling more on Castiel than Lisa and Lisa was the innocent wounded party in that mess. Dean felt like an ass. He winced.

“No, that’s not it,” Dean covered quickly. “I do feel bad, but I was kinda cheating on you with her. I mean unless things were different here, we didn’t actually technically split before you went back to Heaven. That doesn’t really excuse things either…” Dean trailed off.

“Oh,” Castiel said surprised. “Oddly enough, we never thought of it that way. You… _my_ Dean was just so guilty about it, I was too actually, that we didn’t see that.”

Dean smiled crooked and self-deprecating. “Well, maybe that just means you two are better guys than me.”

“Never,” Castiel said seriously.

Dean blushed and fidgeted with the sheets. “So… um, the kids are coming home later, right?”

“Yes,” Castiel nodded, pushing the covers away and busying himself around the bedroom. “Not until late afternoon though. We’ll pick them up. Is there anything you’d like to do before we go to Bobby’s?”

“Bobby’s,” Dean repeated stupidly. 

Bobby. Who Dean called yesterday, who had his house, who was still _alive._

 _Bobby._ When Dean had called, he had still been in a bit of stupor. Castiel and Sam talked about the older hunter, sure, but it didn’t quite register until this moment. Dean felt his eyes burn and he swallowed the lump in his throat. _Bobby._

“Dean?”

Dean’s head snapped up. “Cas! I think, um… Could we be able to go there early without the kids seeing us yet?”

“I imagine so, for a little while, why?”

“I just… I don’t know what shape I’ll be in when I see him for the first time. I’d like to see him before the kids see me. Could we… work that out?”

“Of course,” Castiel nodded quickly, sensing Dean’s tension. The archangel walked over to the dresser and picked up his phone, pressing his speed-dial key for their friend.

“Feathers? That you this time?” Bobby’s gruff voice came over the line after a few rings.

“This time?” 

“Yeah, that boy of yours called yesterday from your phone. Said he couldn’t find his. He all right?”

“Um…” Castiel flicked his gaze over to Dean, who was watching the conversation anxiously.

“I think Dean wishes to discuss that with you. I just wanted to call and let you know that we’ll be there a few hours early and wondered if you could keep the children distracted when we do arrive. Dean would like to speak to you before they see him.”

“What happened?” Bobby’s voice was full of concern.

“Nothing out of the ordinary for us, but he is pretty insistent that he see you before they see him. I’m not too sure myself, to be perfectly honest.”

“All right then,” Bobby conceded easily. “Driving in or angel express?”

“Most likely driving. I don’t want to take Jasper on a flight so near dinner time. He may be part angel but currently he has the constitution of a human,” Castiel remarked with a fond little twist to his lips.

“Sounds good.” Bobby hung up.

Castiel turned back to Dean. “It’s all arranged. I thought we’d go three hours ahead of time, do you think that will be enough?”

“Y…yeah, thanks, Cas.”

xx

Dean still found it weird to see Castiel in the driver’s side. Dean also found it weird for him not to be the one driving. He was used to not being in the Impala now, after their year of hell, but he still missed her, even though Castiel’s Mustang was gorgeous and apparently restored from the ground up by Dean himself as a gift after they got John. Dean wondered if Castiel realized what the true sentiment behind the gift was. Maybe he did now, if he didn’t then.

They opted for Castiel to drive because he knew how to get to Bobby’s from their house. Bobby wasn’t too far out, but Castiel taking them there directly, rather than playing navigator, was easier.

“I’m sorry, Man, that’s still freaking me out,” Dean remarked.

Castiel handled the steering wheel in a casual, relaxed grip as if he was born with it in his hand. If anything, (and Dean hated to admit this) Castiel was actually a better driver than Dean was, despite the fact that Dean spent most of his life in a car.

“You said I was only so good at this because, and I’m quoting here: I was ‘Jedi’ing the mother fucker.’” The curse came as casual as everything else about Castiel now and Dean choked on his own spit.

“Jesus,” Dean hissed, shaking his head in poorly-disguised awe. “What the hell are you and where can I get one? I swear to god, Dude, you’re like tailor-made for me.”

Castiel quirked an amused brow and smirked but didn’t say anything.

They fell in to silence and, though it was comfortable, Castiel reached across and flipped on the radio. It was pre-tuned to a Classic Rock station and Dean was pretty damn sure he was in love, head-over-heels, and also ridiculously jealous of himself. That didn’t help the dull ache though, when the thought of Dean being stuck here turned his attentions to his own Castiel alone and stuck in Purgatory.

“We’ll get you back, Dean,” Castiel said, calm and assured. “I promise you. Then you can get your very own… ah… me, I guess. Regardless of the shape your Cas is in now, he is still a version of myself.”

Even Castiel shortening his own name was a foreign sound to Dean, but it fit somehow. It worked. 

Dean nodded slowly and quieted again. He looked over as a soft voice joined the lyrics on the radio and realized Castiel was subconsciously singing along. Dean smiled but didn’t comment, just enjoyed.

Suddenly though, the car slowed down until Castiel was cruising along at the speed limit rather than the few miles over that he had been doing. Castiel looked up at the roof of the vehicle, frowning to himself and sighing. He pulled the car to the shoulder and sent Dean and apologetic look.

“You know where we are now, I trust?” Castiel asked, as he put the Mustang in park and shut it off.

Dean looked around, recognized the much-travelled strip of road and nodded. They were only a few miles out from Bobby’s. Dean could drive there in his sleep from this point, or at least could have before it burned to the ground. He swallowed and tried not to think about that right now. Immediate problems first.

“I need to go to work,” Castiel explained. “One of my garrison just called and it sounded urgent.”

‘Go to work’ seemed to be the adapted phrase now, for Castiel’s return to Heaven. It was appropriate in a way, but Dean wondered at the change. Maybe for the kids’ sake so they wouldn’t slip up in conversation with civilians; it seemed like a Winchester thing to do.

“Oh, sure thing,” Dean said easily. Though internally, his slight apprehension had just rocketed up a notch. It was going to be difficult enough to see Bobby again. Dean had been absently relying on Castiel to be there to see him through if Dean got too shaky. He had started to rely on Castiel a hell of a lot since they got tossed together in Purgatory, it was habit now.

“You’ll be all right?” Castiel asked, as if he wouldn’t be convinced regardless of what the answer was. “I could…”

“No, no. Go on. It’s Bobby, Dude. Not a problem. I’ll go in through the kitchen or something though, so your boys don’t see me.”

“Our boys,” Castiel said softly, hurt flashing very briefly over his gaze, before he covered it.

Dean looked away and nodded. “Yeah.”

Castiel looked more uncertain than Dean had seen him since he woke up two days ago. Dean wasn’t surprised; the kids brought it out of him.

“Dean, I… Maybe I should go with you. John’s smart and I want to be sure you can… cover up the change if need be. I can just tell them I can’t right now.”

“Cas, if it was urgent, it was urgent. Don’t you kind have the whole world on a string?”

“I’ve one half of the string,” Castiel said dryly.

“My point. You really wanna trust both halves to Gabriel’s sticky little hands?”

“No, no, you’re right.” Castiel was opening the door and climbing out, “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” The angel leaned back in the car after Dean slid over and moved to kiss the green-eyed man but caught himself at the last moment.

Dean rolled his eyes and closed the distance for him. It was chaste, but genuine. 

Castiel pulled back and smiled a little shakily. “You’ll be all right?”

“I’ll be fine,” Dean put more conviction in his tone than he felt. Maybe Castiel wasn’t reading him like an open book and he could get away with it. It wasn’t likely, but Dean was always one to take chances. He didn’t want to be responsible for the world falling into chaos… Again.

Castiel must have let it slide, because he stole two quick glances in either direction and was suddenly wearing his suit and trench-coat instead of jeans and a T-shirt. Castiel waved silently and disappeared.

Dean let out a quavering breath and turned the key Castiel had left in the ignition. The car rumbled to life and Dean felt her purr underneath his hands. He took a second to admire his handy-work on fixing her up and reaffirmed his assessment that yeah, he should totally restore cars for a living. He was awesome at it.

“You have a name, Sweetheart?” Dean asked the car. “Probably not. Well, let’s go to Uncle Bobby’s.” Dean eased the Mustang off the side of the road and headed towards the scrapyard. He turned the radio up and concentrated on the music instead of how his heart was beating double-time in his chest, or how the vinyl-hugged metal of the steering wheel was now slick with cold-sweat below his palms. Dean was trying not to think about seeing the older man again. Was trying not to be terrified that he would break down when he did.

xx

Dean went around to the kitchen door where Bobby was supposed to be waiting for him. Dean knew Bobby was concerned but the older hunter likely had no clue as to what to be concerned about. When the familiar pot-bellied man in the trucker cap swung open the door, Dean just about lost whatever reserve he had managed to maintain right there. Bobby just looked so _alive._ So good. It only struck Dean now, how different Bobby had looked when he was a ghost, but right now the man looked positively vital.

“Hey,” Dean smiled shakily.

“Where’s Feathers?” Bobby asked in greeting, stepping away from the door and leaving it open for Dean to follow. Dean closed the door gently behind himself. He paused a moment just to take in the air of the place – Old Spice, whisky, and musty books. God, it was basically paradise. Ramshackle and beaten all to hell as it was, Bobby’s house had been the second closest thing to a home Dean ever had. At least in his life. Apparently in this life he had his very own house which he shared with two little boys, a little niece, and Cas and Sammy. Dean shook his head.

“You just gonna stand there like an idjit?” Bobby asked skeptically.

Dean felt his eyes sting and his throat burn again. He wouldn’t cry, dammit.

“No, no, I’m coming in, I just ah… needed a minute.”

“You and that angel of yours ain’t fighting again, are you?” Bobby asked with narrowed eyes.

Dean’s eyebrows shot to his hairline. “Again? You saying we fight a lot?”

“Bull-headed, the lot of ya, so yeah, fair amount. What, you block them out or something?”

“No,” Dean said slowly. “Not exactly.”

“Different from the inside, I guess,” Bobby shrugged. “Well, sit your ass down but grab me another beer before you do.”

Dean was more than willing to do as bidden and grabbed one for himself as well, sitting carefully in the chair across from Bobby.

“So which one of you did what this time? And why are you bitching to me and not Sam? And why did Feathers call if your complaint was the one to be lodged, or did he kick you out?”

Dean shook his head slowly. So apparently it wasn’t the perfect marriage.

“No, no, it isn’t like that,” Dean hurried to explain. “We’re cool, Cas just needed to go back to Heaven.”

“Huh,” Bobby remarked.

“What?” 

“Just haven’t heard you say it like that for a long time. Typically you two say ‘go to work’ for the boys’ and Mary’s sake. Can’t say I blame you after that whole incident with Johnny’s teacher in fourth grade,” Bobby chuckled. “Poor woman thought Castiel had died. Though you know that, since you just love telling the story.”

“Yeah,” Dean smiled crooked.

“Try ‘no’,” Bobby shot back, levelling a gun at Dean under the table. Dean heard the metallic _click_ of it being cocked. “Third strike, so what the hell is going on?”

Dean smirked wryly. “You’re getting sneakier in your old age. Where’d I go wrong?”

“Where didn’t you? You and Castiel fight but not often, but when you do they’re doozies. One of you typically haul-ass and kicks some to get it out of your system. Obvious one was ‘to Heaven’ and it wasn’t fourth grade, it was first. Not to mention you never tell that story. So what are you and what the hell are you doing in my kitchen?”

Dean held up placating hands. “I’m Dean, I’m just not… from around here.”

“Go on,” Bobby invited; the muzzle of the gun thudded dully on the underside of the table. Bobby must have gestured with it.

“Well I did want to explain after all,” Dean shrugged. “Wondered how well I could manage before I did, though. Guess I failed that big time, and after Cas has been quizzing me all morning, too.”

Dean did his best to explain his situation to Bobby while leaving out some minor details, like the fact that Bobby had _died._ Bobby didn’t have to be worried about that. 

Dean did include some of the sketchier elements of Castiel’s involvement in the near-world-annihilation but still kept some of it to himself. Dean continued to be afraid how Castiel would react to his doppelganger nearly levelling a third of the world before he was de-nuked. 

“I was hurt pretty bad, huh?” Bobby surmised regardless.

“Pretty bad,” Dean choked out after the Cliffs Notes version of his year.

“How much of this did you tell Castiel?” Bobby wanted to know.

“As little as possible.”

“So he doesn’t know about his role in the whole mess?”

“Not a lick,” Dean shook his head.

“Tell him,” Bobby said bluntly.

“No! No way,” Dean retorted quickly. “That is not happening. It tore my Cas to shreds, Bobby, I am not about to shatter another Dean’s. That’s just not fair.”

“You don’t know this Castiel, though. He can handle it, and if you don’t tell him, he’s just gonna go and find out somehow and then he’s gonna be pissed. And if you think a pissed off angel is bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet of a pissed off _arch_ angel, let me tell you.”

“I’m not telling him, Bobby,” Dean said quietly.

“Can’t say I didn’t warn you, then,” Bobby shrugged.

Dean just picked up his beer and took small sips, staring blankly down at the table.

“Dad! …Hey _Dad_! Heaven to Dad, calling all Dads!”

Bobby kicked Dean’s shin under the table and, wincing, Dean turned, pasting a smile on his face.

“H…hey, Sport,” Dean greeted uncomfortably.

“Jeeze, where were you?” John blinked, then the boy shrugged, coming over to the table and hugging him quickly. “Hi, Dad.”

“Hi,” Dean smiled back. God, seeing the kid was weird, the pictures only did so much. But from this close, Dean could see his own green eyes staring back at him, a dusting of freckles on Castiel’s long, straight nose and the full lips of the angel with Dean’s cupid bow sharpening them. The boy had chestnut hair maybe a shade or two lighter than Sam and nowhere near as dark as Castiel’s or as light as Dean’s own, and it was warn a little long and kept a complete mess. Dean reached up and automatically began flattening out the wayward waves. John scowled and batted Dean’s hand away and Dean had to smile.

John rolled his eyes but turned his attention to Bobby. “Grampa, can I have some juice?”

“You got legs,” Bobby nodded at the fridge.

John grinned and scampered over. 

Dean mouthed a curious ‘Grampa?’ at Bobby once the boy had his back turned.

Bobby shrugged and seemed to redden a little but didn’t comment. Dean smiled. Yeah, ‘grampa’ worked just find by him.

Dean turned his attention back to the boy and watched as he climbed on a small wooden stool and pulled a cup from the cupboard before pouring himself a generous glass.

John held his cup carefully and walked back out past the adults; he took a few steps back though, just before he reached the threshold and turned impossibly large green eyes on Dean.

“Where’s Pop? He coming later?”

“Ah yeah, yeah…” Dean nodded, hesitating only a second. “He um… got called into work.”

John wrinkled his nose then shrugged and left the kitchen. “Stupid work,” Dean just heard the boy mumble before his back disappeared entirely.

“You passed,” Bobby remarked idly before Dean could ask.

“Wow, he _really_ looks like Cas and I. Guess I don’t have to run out and get a paternity test, huh?” Dean joked.

Bobby rolled his eyes.

“I’m still not entirely sure on how we got them,” Dean said.

“Well I certainly ain’t giving you the angel and hunter version of the birds and the bees speech.”

Dean couldn’t help but wince when he heard ‘bees’ and his thoughts turned once again to Cas and Purgatory. He spun his beer slowly around on the table top, darkening the condensation ring with each pass and only looked up again when he heard pounding feet on the worn wooden floor and saw John run back in. His glass apparently abandoned somewhere.

“Auntie Jody wants to take Mary and me for ice cream, can we go Dad?” John asked eagerly.

“Ah…” Dean hesitated, looking at Bobby who shrugged again.

“Oh _please_ , Dad,” John begged. “Dinner’s like hours away.”

Dean racked his brain for an appropriately paternal thing to say. “Just one scoop,” Dean managed.

“Cool! Thanks Dad!” John slammed Dean with a hug so fast and hard that Dean actually let out a small chuff of air at the impact. John pulled back almost immediately and began running again, calling Jody’s name as he went.

“Shoes!” a familiar voice was calling out as its owner approached. “And help your cousin with hers!” Jody appeared in the doorway, a baby balanced casually on her hip. The pretty brunette Sheriff grinned at Dean and Dean couldn’t help but smile back. He always liked Jody, she was good people. Reminded her of a younger Ellen in a way, complete with sass.

“I believe this belongs to you,” Jody said easily, dropping the baby on Dean’s lap. “Oh, I miss him already. You’ll have to let me kidnap these kids again, Dean.”

“Y…yeah, sure Sheriff,” Dean nodded, holding the baby stiffly. The one-year-old looked up and bubbled at Dean, clearly recognizing him.

“Try Jody,” she shook her head. “Will I ever break you and Sam of that habit?”

“We know when to respect authority, Ma’am,” Dean winked.

“That’s a laugh,” Jody replied. She was puttering around Bobby’s kitchen. Clearly the sheriff was a frequent visitor. She reached into cupboards and sorted through items like a pro. Dean shot Bobby a significant look, but the older man just coughed and shifted in his seat.

“Ah, thanks for helping the old man out Sh… Jody. He’s ain’t as limber as he used to be,” Dean grinned.

“Don’t I know it,” Jody laughed.

Dean choked on air at that one and Bobby reddened and wriggled in his seat again.

“Here you go,” the woman handed Dean a bottle of warmed formula which Dean took, a little stunned. Jody continued, “I’ll have John and Mary back before Castiel and Sam get here. I promise, small scoops.” Jody winked and left the room with a wave.

Dean shifted the quietly cooing baby and began feeding him automatically. He had helped out with Lisa’s little niece enough times, and then there was the shifter baby that Sam barely did anything for. Granted, Sam was soulless at the time, but Dean was primary caregiver for that one.

Bobby observed quietly then said, “Seem pretty comfortable with that.”

Dean shrugged. “Babies are easy. Play, feed, poop. I can say whatever the hell I want to this little guy, it’s all the other shit that’s got me thrown.”

“So you’re admitting it then?”

Dean smiled uneasily. “Suppose I am, yeah… I mean Cas has been great, really. But it’s just so bizarre. I’m trying to act well… like his Dean. I don’t want him to get hurt or anything but we’re definitely not at this stage anymore in my timeline. Dude can barely function in civil conversation, let alone in a relationship. And the _kids_ , me being a _dad_ , that’s… That’s probably the biggest challenge of all. I don’t know man. I can play boyfriend for Cas; the dad thing, though? When John came in here? I was panicking on the inside, Bobby. Even just seeing you there across from me is hard to wrap my head around, but I’m trying really hard.”

“Maybe don’t,” Bobby said.

“What?”

“Maybe don’t try so hard. Just be, Dean, you may end up hurting people more if you keep pushing yourself to be someone you aren’t yet. Hell, you weren’t even _you_ as you are in our timeline for, God, _years_. You’ve only just settled down. So just be Dean. Put on the dad face for John, but don’t think you have to _be_ the other Dean. And Feathers? He’ll understand. It’s probably weird for him too.”

Jasper had finished with his bottle and Dean eased the boy onto his shoulder, burping him gently before shifting the baby again so Dean could look at him. A dark mop of hair, darker than John’s but still wild. The nose was still the pretty neutral baby shape but it seemed to be taking on more of Dean’s slant than Castiel’s. Round baby face and probably the biggest shock of all were wide, wide blue eyes. Large, stunning and innocent in a way Dean had never seen those eyes before. They were Castiel’s, no doubt, but Castiel without worry. It was amazing, to say the least.

Dean shifted Jasper around and eased the boy against his chest. Jasper settled comfortably, singing softly to himself little nonsense words. Dean rested his chin on incredibly soft hair and just tried, in the moment of quiet away from expectant eyes, to take it all in.

He didn’t realized when Bobby got up and left him alone.


	3. Part Two: Dream a Little Dream

**Part Two: Dream a Little Dream**

Castiel made it to Bobby’s far later than he had expected. The old hunter had left the porch light on and the door unlocked for the angel, not that Castiel really needed either. Though, for the sake of propriety he did use the door. By the feel of the house it seemed that Bobby had turned in and Sam must have come and taken Mary and John home hours ago. Curiously though, Dean remained with Jasper.

Castiel walked silently into the living room where he found Dean slumped on the couch, sound asleep, with Jasper equally at rest on his chest. Castiel felt his throat tighten a little at the sight. It was so familiar, yet even just looking at him, Castiel could now tell that his Dean was not here. Anyone else would have been fooled at the sight, Castiel was sure.

“I hope you’re all right, Sweetheart,” Cas whispered to the universe at large.

Castiel sighed heavily.

The meeting in Heaven had not at all been what he was expecting. He had assumed Gabriel was calling him in to take care of some sort of crisis of Faith in one of the more devout areas of the world. They tended to show signs of their presence in places like Rome, Spain and the Philippines where Faith was still strong and present in daily life. Typically, it had been through small miracles but occasionally they made personal appearances in dreams. Just last week Castiel visited a 98-year-old nun in her sleep and blessed her good work. She had been born on a Thursday and would die on a Thursday. She had cried.

However, that was not the case this time. This time it had been what Castiel could only call an intervention. The charge was led by Hester with Rachel as back-up. Castiel shouldn’t have been surprised. Inias had been there too, but his eyes had been sad and he said little.

xx

_“He’s an abomination, Castiel! Surely you see that. He is disrupting our timeline. Think of the world, think of your **children**. Would you really risk their lives?” Hester asked, aura furious in the cool light of Heaven._

_“He was sent here for a reason and that is beyond my control. Not even Gabriel can interfere,” Castiel retorted, glaring through the mist at his sister. They always had a bit of a volatile relationship. Hester tended to get along better with Uriel and Anna back in the days when they were stationed together._

_“And you know this how?” Rachel asked. She was calmer than Hester, but still bristling. Rachel hated when the order was disrupted, she was a more anxious angel then some. Loyal to a fault though. Castiel was sure this encounter was making her uncomfortable._

_Castiel sighed, sometimes he hated to admit this, but it wasn’t a secret. “I spoke with, Father.”_

_“Father!” Inias spoke finally, coming closer, reaching out and grasping Castiel’s arm. “You saw him? Is he coming back, Castiel?”_

_Castiel smiled gently, “I am sorry, Inias. You know the answer to that. I speak to him so rarely myself, this was… an extenuating circumstance. This other Dean’s presence here was disconcerting, to say the least. I needed answers. I took my concerns to Father. He said this was God’s will but not His will. It was another version of Himself.”_

_Inias turned then to the two woman. “See then? We cannot dispute Father’s Word, sisters. Please, let us go in peace now. There has been far too much fighting in the last several years.”_

_“Perhaps—” Rachel began hesitantly._

_“No! If that is truly the case, I wish to hear so from Gabriel. Father will not speak to us, but surely He will speak to our Glorious Brother.”_

_Castiel internally grimaced. **Glorious Brother, my ass**. Gabriel was the only remaining true Archangel and the other angels, much more reverent than Castiel, treated him with the respect they had been ingrained with since inception._

_“Can you not trust my word? Would I risk my sons?” Castiel tried._

_“I am sorry Castiel. Hester is right. We should hear this from Gabriel. He is Our Father’s voice now. I do propose that we hold off any action until we know for sure,” Rachel spoke._

_“Sisters, please, this is Castiel,” Inias, sweet, loyal Inias. Castiel squeezed his shoulder in gratitude. The slightly smaller angel offered a slight smile._

_“No, Inias. You have always had a strong affection for our brother and I fear that you may be blinded slightly in that regard. I respect your word, but do not follow it. We will speak to Gabriel, but we will wait on ridding our timeline of the doppelganger until we hear. Pass this to our Brother, Castiel.”_

_“I…” Castiel hesitated, then sighed. “Very well. I am returning now. If you have cause for my assistance…”_

_“Yes, Brother, of course,” Inias said eagerly. “May you have safe and favourable winds.”_

_“Thank you,” Castiel nodded. He looked at his two sisters one last time before he disappeared._

xx

Castiel walked silently up to Dean and bent down to gently pull Jasper free from the green-eyed hunter’s hold. Dean’s arms tightened, not enough to hurt the child, but enough to notice and he mumbled quietly in sleep.

“Shh, Dean. It’s just me,” Castiel whispered.

“Gotta… protect… Cas…” Dean muttered, twisting away and curling around the baby.

“Dean, Dean. It’s all right. It’s me, it’s Cas.”

Dean blinked opened his eyes. They were still blurred and he wasn’t fully awake but he was aware enough to see who stood over him. “Cas? Y’not crazy?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” Castiel remarked.

“S’the point. Not aware. Think nothing wrong,” Dean murmured.

“It’s all right, Dean. Let me have the baby and we’ll go home.”

“E’good baby.”

Castiel smiled. “Very good. I’m going to get him settled in the car and then I’ll come back and get you. Just rest.”

“Night,” Dean finally relinquished his hold on the boy and turned over on the couch, burrowing against the well-worn back of it.

Castiel watched his back fondly for a second before he cooed down at his son, who looked up at him with wide blue eyes.

“Can you tell he’s different?”

Jasper gurgled, reaching up. He was too tired to say anything but he smiled, showing the first few of his tiny white teeth. Jasper shifted and settled so he was resting more firmly against Castiel’s chest, his eyes closing slowly. Castiel kissed his head and carried him outside.

He was just about at the car and reaching around his seat when the light from the stars shifted slightly. The moon was a sliver in the sky and most of the yard was bathed in dark. Castiel looked up, uneasy at the shift and shuddered faintly.

His brothers and sisters were anxious for answers, and it was palatable in Earth’s aura. Castiel knew he still had to earn their trust somewhat. He was still fairly new to his position of archangel and they were hesitant to trust him. He had always been favoured among the elder angels, but going from foot-soldier to commander in a few short leaps was bound to make anyone nervous. Especially considering he was one of the youngest angels in creation. Only Castiel’s two boys and Inias were younger. Balthazar had been as well but he was no longer with them. Castiel still missed his brother. They had been very close before Castiel fell, before the war.

Castiel came back into the house and gently guided Dean over. “Come on, wake up. We need to go home.”

Dean mumbled sleepily.

Castiel smiled, amused. “Are you going to make me carry you again?”

“No, sleeping.”

“Dean.”

Dean murmured again.

Castiel shrugged and moved to scoop the hunter into his arms. Dean jolted at that, fighting against the hold. Castiel released him, chuckling lightly.

Dean finally woke enough to push himself to his feet, but even then Castiel guided him out of the house. The body Dean may be inhabiting was well rested, but the soul clearly had been under great stress the last several weeks or months or however long it had been that Dean had been trapped in that horrible place. Castiel had another flash of panic at the thought of his own Dean being there. His Father may have assured him that the Deans hadn’t switched places but there was a still a small nagging doubt. Suffice to say, Castiel still had a few trust issues when it came to his Father.

The drive home was faster than usual. Castiel chose to ignore the speed regulations. It was late at night and no one was around. Police rarely patrolled this stretch of road anyway and even if they had, Castiel wouldn’t be getting a ticket. It might be a slight abuse of his power, but he figured after this long, he was entitled. If Gabriel could get away with some of the things he had done, Castiel could talk himself out of a few speeding tickets without guilt. Or at least, that was Dean’s justification.

Dean woke up again about five minutes from the house, looked over at Castiel, and startled at seeing the angel in the driver’s seat, before he relaxed.

“Speed demon,” Dean teased, tiredly. “At first I thought Sammy was driving but then remembered he drove like an old lady. Guess I still don’t expect to see you there.”

Castiel shrugged, glancing away from the road. “It’s only been a few days. I don’t expect you to be acclimatized overnight. Did you get along with the boys all right?”

“Ah… yeah, yeah. John didn’t hang around much. Sammy got the kids shortly after they came back from getting ice cream with Jody. John was gonna stay and wait for you but Sam saw I was tired and convinced him to go home. Sam would have taken Jass too if he could get the car seat in his truck.”

Castiel smiled.

“What?” Dean asked.

“You called him Jass.”

“Ah… yeah. Is that weird?”

“No, just the opposite,” Castiel replied, looking over at Dean again, eyes bright, smile slight but so earnest it almost hurt to see.

Dean felt his mouth grow dry at the sight and had to swallow. Seeing Cas like that, so at peace, it was… Well it was beautiful. _I hope I can get you like this, for real._

Castiel and Dean had their moments, back before the apocalypse that wasn’t. Did they _ever_ have their moments. Then Dean lost himself and they pulled apart and the sweetness turned angry but the desire hadn’t faded at all. It still felt right to be _them_ and not just Dean and Cas anymore. It was bitter though, tainted slightly, until Dean turned his world view around. Then it was okay for a while but difficult. Castiel was human suddenly and that was a whole new ballgame for the angel. Then he got juiced up, and they drifted apart again, this time leagues apart and things just hadn’t been right since.

Dean was working on it though, getting things back to how they had been before Dean broke. Before Cas shattered. It was difficult and probably wouldn’t be a quick fix, but Dean needed his friend back, his more-than-friend. Being together in Purgatory has shown Dean how much he’d almost lost, how much he could still lose if he wasn’t careful.

They arrived back at the house in good time. Dean got out and waited while Castiel got Jasper out of the car and locked it up. Dean watched how natural Castiel was with the child. The gentle smiles he flashed the boy and the quiet whispers in English, Enochian, or one of the other many languages Castiel knew.

“Do they speak it, too?” Dean asked suddenly.

“What?” Castiel asked.

“Everything, I guess… Enochian.”

Castiel looked like he was thinking about it for a second before he answered, “I’ve never heard them speak any language other than English but they do understand. I’m not sure if they even realize it. When John was young, maybe six or seven, there was a woman in the park. She was older and she was on the ground. At first, we were worried because we thought she fell, but she had bent down to look for her bracelet. Her daughter had given it to the old woman before the girl went overseas to teach. The woman was frantic, mumbling away in Spanish, but John instinctively knew what she was saying. He was so little but he helped her. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman so grateful.” Castiel smiled very slightly, then almost smirked without any derisiveness to it. He seemed amused.

“What?” Dean wanted to know.

“It’s just, once he found it and returned it, she called him _mi angelito_.”

Dean puzzled that out for a moment, “My little angel?”

“Yes.”

Dean chuckled then yawned, wide and jaw-cracking.

“Shall we sleep?” Castiel asked unnecessarily. He handed the keys to Dean, who had to flick through them twice until he figured out which one was for the front door.

“I’ll put him down, you go ahead,” Castiel offered.

Dean nodded.

xx

Dean looked across their small camp fire burning an odd blue-green with the alien vegetation. It glowed softly in the milky grey light of Purgatory that Dean had long-assumed meant it was day in this place.

Castiel sat, eyes wide and blank, open and staring at nothing.

“Cas?”

Castiel didn’t respond and Dean only expected him to a little if he were being honest. Castiel got this way sometimes down here. Just quiet. Dean waited for Castiel to move, blink, or flinch but the angel remained little more than a statue, with only his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm.

“I know a part of you thinks you deserve this, Cas. I suppose in a way maybe it is a kind of penance. You did some pretty shitty things, I ain’t gonna deny that. But I think maybe what happened to you is a little bit my fault, too.

“If I wasn’t wrapped up in my own angst after the whole Lisa deal, maybe I would have seen how desperate you were. I guess I pushed you into it, in a way. Demanding more than you could give. A person – angel – whatever, can only take so much. You were fighting a fucking huge war in Heaven and I didn’t take one second to see that. Jesus, I feel like such a girl right now,” Dean sighed and tossed another stick on the fire, watching blue sparks fly into the still air before they burnt themselves out.

“I…” Dean began haltingly; he swallowed and continued, “I told Sam once - God, years ago now – I told Sam once that me making that deal and going to Hell? That I was okay with that. You remember that I’m sure, wrapped up in all the Looney Toons in your head, anyway. I told him I was okay with it because I was tired and there seemed to be a light waiting for me. Smartass that Sam is, shot back with,” Dean mimicked Sam, “‘It’s Hellfire, Dean’ dumb kid, but I think - and I never told anyone this and if you tell anyone I uttered even something similar to what I’m about to say I’ll kill you; I can too, you know, I got a stash of angel-blades in Baby’s trunk.

“Anyway, I think… maybe… that the light I could see, could sense, was… you. You changed me in a lot of ways, Cas. More good ways than bad. You’re the only one… Even when you aren’t you, that I’m able to really talk to, you know, Man? Bobby said once that you were the best friend I ever had and he’s right… Was right.” Dean went quiet for a moment.

“What I’m saying, Cas, what this big rambling speech comes down to, is that it’s okay. You fixed the mistake and you… you can stop now, all right? You don’t gotta… You don’t have to be crazy anymore. It’s okay, Cas. So just… Just…” Dean waited with his breath held but Castiel didn’t move.

Dean closed his eyes. “I did some shit too, Cas, okay? I know you maybe don’t know how to handle the guilt and that’s new to you. I get that, but this way? This ain’t the way. You don’t have to worry anymore. I got this one.”

Still nothing.

Dean sucked in a deep breath before saying, “Okay, this is my last play, Man. You cannot tell a single soul about this. There’s this poem – sonnet actually – it’s probably one of the only things I remember about Grade Eleven English. I always liked it and it’s by, get this Cas, Shakespeare.

“Look, I memorized it, but if you tell Sam that I know Shakespeare - let alone what a sonnet is - the kid will laugh his ass off. So we’ll just keep this to ourselves. Just… ah… listen. It may help:

“No more be grieved at that which thou hast done:/Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud, /Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun, /And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud. /All men make faults, and even I in this, /Authorizing thy trespass with compare, /Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss, /Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are; /For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense -- /Thy adverse party is thy advocate -- /And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence./Such civil war is in my love and hate/That I an accessary needs must be /To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me .”

Dean took a deep breath when he finished and waited. Song lyrics, lines of dialogue from movies, things his dad would say. All these Dean memorized, but he had never memorized a poem before. He poured over the damn thing until his eyes hurt, squinting against the dim light of the flashlight in the muggy in-between of his bed sheets. There was something about it, even then, that he managed to relate to. He hated poetry on principal, but Shakespeare knew his shit. Dude was even funny. Dean found himself laughing along with everyone else when he went to see _Romeo and Juliet_ with his class that one time.

That didn’t matter, though. The language was archaic and Dean still had problems wrapping his head around it sometimes, but he got the gist. He understood and that had been new. So yeah, he memorized it. Never admitted that to anyone before, though. Maybe Cas didn’t count.

“Dean,” Castiel’s voice was low and steady, solid like it used to be, and Dean’s heart leapt to his throat, choking off his air in a solid squeeze.

“Yeah, Cas?” Dean croaked. He should have known better.

“What are akin to insects here sing in the most peculiar timbre. Did you notice? I noticed. I’ve been listening. I wish we had a Twister mat. It’s too bad that didn’t fit in my trench coat. I wonder if I could have fit it in my trench coat if I tried. Oh!” Castiel got up suddenly and shuffled away. He came back a few minutes later with a handful of stones and a stick of black wood. The bark looked slimy and strange in the half-light.

Castiel crouched and began scratching in the dirt. Dean watched for a moment before he came over and helped Cas to shade in every other square on the grid. Looked like Castiel was over Tic-Tac-Toe and that they’d be trying their hand at Checkers tonight.

Castiel paused in his work and said very quietly, looking Dean right in the eye, “It might not work, but we can try.”

Dean’s chest felt tight. “Yeah, Cas, yeah. Let’s try.”

xx

Dean woke up, Castiel’s name on his lips. He looked around and took in the sunlit bedroom that was gradually becoming familiar to him. Castiel was sleeping on his stomach on the bed next to Dean, but it wasn’t _Dean’s_ Castiel.

Castiel stirred, rolled over, and looked at Dean, sleepy eyes full of concern. “Are you all right?”

“Y…yeah,” Dean answered shakily, running a hand through his hair. The Dean of this timeline kept it longer than Dean was used to; it flopped around messed from sleep, gel gone with the night.

“Dean, you know you can—”

“I know, Cas. I’m okay. Hungry though,” Dean pushed down the blankets and climbed out of bed.

“Do you want me to—”

“Nah,” Dean interrupted again. “You don’t get a chance to sleep much and from the looks of you, it seems you enjoy it. Stay there, it’s cool.”

Castiel nodded hesitantly and lay back down. Dean felt the blue eyes on his back as he went down the hallway.

Getting around the kitchen would take some effort but Dean would manage it. People tended to keep things in the most logical spot. The problems was, what might be a ‘logical’ spot for one person was not necessarily a logical spot for another. But this was _Dean’s_ house, in a way.

He began by opening cupboards at random and found one that was full of baking supplies. He thought that was little strange, but maybe Castiel enjoyed baking, or Sam. That seemed like a Sam thing to do.

It didn’t take long after that for Dean to find what he needed and he started breakfast. He hoped everyone would be happy with eggs and bacon because that was pretty much the extent of his kitchen prowess.

“Dean.”

Dean jumped and spun, slumping against the counter when he saw Castiel standing a little awkwardly in the doorway. The angel shifted from foot to foot, looked at Dean, and then looked away.

“Dean, you know you can talk to me. You can tell me anything you need to. I know every facet of you and that isn’t an exaggeration,” Castiel said gently.

Dean watched Castiel watch him for a long moment. He wanted to tell the angel everything swimming around in his head but he just couldn’t take the risk. This Cas had changed a lot in thirteen years and though he seemed stronger, more stable, Dean didn’t know how the angel would take being told not only did he smash Sam’s wall and almost destroy the world, he was also currently absolutely bonkers and flailing around in Purgatory. Cas knew the last part but Dean had carefully side-stepped the other issues. He hoped.

“Nothing to talk about, Man,” Dean grinned. “Hey everyone in this house eat eggs and bacon still?”

“Ah… yes. Though Sam is still much keener on fruit and whole wheat toast,” Castiel said.

Once again, Dean got the feeling the angel didn’t believe him for a second but was willing to accept his word for now. Dean watched as Castiel moved to the fridge and pulled out some fruit that he began to cut up.

“Well, we’ll let him keep telling us that,” Dean winked. “Bet hard money that Sam still has a weakness for bacon.”

“Quite,” Castiel flashed a quick smile, his eyes twinkling. He paused in his slicing and looked over his shoulder. “The baby.”

“I don’t— Right, angel.”

Castiel smiled and tossed Dean a little wink. Absurdly, Dean found himself flushing at the gesture and turned back to the eggs and popping bacon with more concentration than was strictly necessary. Castiel chuckled lowly and made his way out of the kitchen. John stumbled in a few minutes after him looking rumbled and sleepy-eyed still.

“Morning, Monkey,” Dean greeted. Sounded natural enough to his own ears.

“Hi Dad. I thought it was Pop’s day to cook.”

Dean winced. “Oh ah… decided to give him the day off.”

“I like bacon more than porridge anyway,” John remarked. He shuffle-walked over to the fridge and pulled out the large carton of orange juice, balancing it precariously. Dean almost leapt to the rescue of the poor unsuspecting cardboard but John eased it onto the counter before it could crash to the floor. “Pop kinda sucks at breakfast but he’s pretty awesome on the grill. Think he’s gonna do that tonight?”

“Ah… Not sure,” Dean confessed. He had been off on a job apparently so that was probably safe enough to say. Dean began to wonder who it was who did the baking then. A part of him kind of assumed Cas would be the domestic one of the two, but John’s little revelation about breakfast had him second guessing. Not to mention Castiel’s teasing remark a few days ago about Dean being the ‘homemaker’ in their relationship. That was just all kinds of piles of weird.

“Oh well, I’ll ask when he comes back, maybe he’ll do it if I ask. Rather that than spaghetti. _Again._ Still don’t see why you guys gotta switch anyway,” Dean heard a pout in John’s voice.

Dean found himself chuckling. “Cas isn’t much of a cook, huh?”

John snickered. “I thought we weren’t allowed to say that anymore. Last time we did he didn’t cook for a month and you got grumpy.”

“Right, I think he’ll forgive me—”

“Just this once,” Castiel said archly with a tiny, haughty glare. “Human cooking contraptions confound me. At least the grill makes logical sense. Humans have been using fire to char meat essentially since the dawn of your species.”

“I ain’t eating it if it’s charred,” Dean wrinkled his nose. “I like it still—”

“Red and mooing,” John and Castiel finished in unison.

“We’re aware,” Castiel added.

Dean stared at them, a little bemused, but didn’t comment and turned back to the frying pan. Castiel buckled Jasper into his highchair and pulled a jar of apple sauce out of the cupboard. Dean stole a casual glance at the jar.

“Huh, strawberry-apple, that would make a good pie,” Dean said idly.

“You gonna make it Dad? It’s been like forever since you made a pie! Strawberry-apple would be awesome!” John said eagerly.

Dean turned wide surprised eyes at Castiel and mouthed, “Me?” Well that answered _that_ question. Damnit.

Castiel only smirked and carried the little plastic bowl over to Jasper as well as a handful of plain Cheerios. Castiel scooted back over to the frying pan and stopped Dean’s hand before he put on the pepper and salt, scooping out a small portion of scrambled eggs onto a little plastic plate before putting that on Jasper’s tray as well.

“It’s hot, Jasper. You must wait,” Castiel instructed as the baby moved to reach for them. Castiel placed a hand on the edge of the plate. Nothing seemed to happen but if Dean looked closely he could see the steam was gone.

“Okay?” Jasper asked.

“Okay,” Castiel nodded.

Dean watched how smoothly the angel moved around the kitchen, _his_ kitchen. How easily it came to him to work around Dean and feed the baby. Castiel was loose and comfortable, perfectly at ease. There was still an element of otherness to him but it wasn’t nearly as noticeable as Dean was used to. In public, Castiel probably just seemed like a slightly quirky human who happened to talk to his infant in full sentences.

“Dean, if you stand there gaping much longer you’re going to burn your beloved bacon,” Castiel said without looking away from where he was once again slicing the fruit.

“Oh Jesus fu—” Dean winced. “Ah… Darn.”

“Dad! Don’t blaspheme! Pop gets super angry when you do that!” John chastised, aghast.

“Sorry, guys,” Dean muttered.

Castiel took his raised eyebrows and turned back to his meticulously sliced fruit, which he was now scooping carefully into a bowl that he carried over to the table. He gave John a generous helping, causing the boy to scowl but he set to work on it anyway.

“Daddy! Unca Dean’s making _bacon_ ,” a chipper young voice echoed in from the hallway.

“Yes, Princess. I see. I thought Uncle Cas was going to cook today,” Sam came into the room, Mary balanced on his hip easily. He moved around both Dean and Cas, popping slices of toast into their large toaster oven on the shelf over the dishwasher.

“Uncle Cas still cut up your fruit for you,” Castiel pointed out.

“Thanks, Dude,” Sam grinned. “We get our fruit, Sweet Girl.”

“No oatmeal?” Mary wanted to know.

“Tomorrow, chef duty is all his,” Dean replied, setting down his plates of bacon and eggs. Sam placed Mary in her booster seat, casually dropping a kiss on her blonde curls, then he went over to check on the toast.

“You’re turning your girl there into a little health-nut clone, Sammy. I’m ashamed,” Dean teased.

“My kid,” Sam stuck his tongue at his brother. “So there. She still likes her Lucky Charms though, huh, Butterfly?”

“Lucky Charms!” Mary crowed.

“Oh man, I want that for lunch,” John added.

“I think it’s hereditary,” Dean laughed.

“You aren’t getting Lucky Charms for lunch, John,” Castiel shot the idea down fast.

“I’m the fun one, aren’t I?” Dean grinned at the eleven-year-old.

“Not usually,” Sam chuckled, answering for his nephew, eyes sparkling.

Dean was just about to take his seat at the table when he had to stop. Sam grinning, laughing, joking. Castiel relaxed, happy, at peace. Three beautiful children. Enjoying breakfast together, like a _family_. A _normal_ family. Like Dean always wanted.

He shook his head slowly, taking in the scene, feeling a roiling sickness in his gut and the air choke off midway up his throat. No, no, no. This was wrong, this couldn’t be. Dean didn’t _get_ the things he wanted; he wasn’t that lucky. This was all just some twisted fantasy playing out in his head. Really, he was freezing to death in Purgatory while a half-cocked angel ran around fighting shadows and playing made-up board games. _That_ was his life.

Jasper and John had stopped eating. Sam and Castiel paused. Jasper began to cry. Dean looked at the infant’s wide, wide blue eyes. Over at the curious expression on John’s face and the concern clear on Sam’s and Castiel’s. He backed away, turned on his heel, and ran – bare feet, pajama pants and not much else – out into the backyard, which was misty with evaporating dew in the early summer morning.

He stopped at the edge of the fence line, bent double, and rested his hands on his knees as he tried to breathe. No, no, no, no. This was some cruel, sick fantasy. It had to be. He wasn’t living this, this wouldn’t be his life. How could it be his life? How did he deserve such a thing after all the terrible things he’d done? He almost fucking destroyed the world, three fucking times, for Christ’s sake.

“Dean?”

Dean didn’t move and went so far as to still entirely and hold his breath.

“Dean? What happened in there, Man?”

Dean finally turned, his eyes closed for a few beats, then he opened them again. “Sammy, this isn’t actually real, is it?”

“What?”

“All of this. This life. You with a kid. Me and Cas with those boys. It can’t be real, right? I’ve been somewhere like here before, Sammy. Just tell me the truth this time, all right?”

“Dean, we _are_ telling you the truth,” Sam said gently, coming forward cautiously.

“No!” Dean snapped. “You can’t be! I was fed the same bullshit in the djinn dream all those years ago. This is just version 2.0 or some shit. They got it better, but it can’t be this perfect, Sam. So just fess up. This is something like that, right? If not a djinn, then it’s something else. Maybe one of the Purgatory beasts whammied me. God, what if it got _Cas_?”

“Purgatory?! Dean, what are you talking about? When were you in Purgatory? Oh my God. Did you fall through when Crowley opened it? Is that what happened? Cas tried to pull you out and he got sucked in after you? That’s gotta be where the timeline spliced, then,” Sam’s brain was already going into problem solving mode. Dean could see it and it looked so _real_. Dean felt as if he were choking again. How could they get it so close?

Sam was continuing, “I bet Cas tried to mojo you out but the entrance into Purgatory’s like a vortex and he miscalculated and sent you flying here. I need to get to Bobby’s…”

Dean slowly shook his head. No. Wrong. Stop. The mention of Bobby only clinched the deal. Of course in Dean’s fantasyland, Bobby would still be alive.

“Shut up!” Dean shouted. “Just shut up! Enough bullshit. You aren’t my brother, I’m not here!” Dean turned angry eyes to the sky. “Get me out, you bastard! Whoever you are! Get me out!”

“Dean? Dean!”

Sam’s large hands were crushing Dean’s shoulders, pressing into tender flesh and overlapping Castiel’s handprint scar. Large paws far too big to fit the space. Dean cried out again and smacked Sam’s hands away, cradling his own shoulder protectively as if blocking the scar from the imposter before him. His only connection left to the angel in this fucked-up place. He pressed his hand over it, feeling hard muscle and pressed harder, bruising his own flesh with the force of it. He didn’t care.

Cas. Please Cas. Bring me back.

“Dean.”

“Cas.”

“Hush now.”

The blue, vaguely man-shaped light pressed a warm palm to his forehead and Dean slumped boneless to the hard ground, the smell of earth thick in his nostrils.

xx

“I don’t think we should eat those again.”

“What?” Dean blinked, it was too dark, too cold. Damp wet and almost chemical-smelling below all the thick, dark dirt.

“Those berries. We shouldn’t eat them again.”

“Cas.”

“Hello, Dean. You had an exceptionally unfavourable reaction. I told you not to eat them. You didn’t listen. Is that a new trend of yours? Or an old one? Never, ever listening.” Castiel scratched away at the dirt. Dean crawled over.

“What’s that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a spell, maybe a poem. Maybe something I’ve been saying all along but that you continue to refuse to hear. Though you are a Winchester. It should certainly be expected by now. No more berries, Dean.”

“Fruit. You were cutting fruit.”

“No. You’re mistaken.”

“Cas? Cas, is this real?” Dean asked urgently, grasping the angel’s arm tight.

“I wouldn’t know, Dean,” Castiel said idly. “Do you feel as if it’s real?”

“It _was_ a dream. I knew it,” Dean muttered to himself. “You should have seen it, Cas. It was all kinds of fucked-up. Kids, you and I were practically gay-married, Man. And, well, the whole sanity thing and Sam slept with a stripper and he had a little girl.”

Castiel laughed.

“What?” Dean wanted to know.

“Sam had intercourse with an exotic dancer,” Castiel answered.

“Yeah, I know. Guess my subconscious is all kinds of messed up.”

Castiel continued making his scratches in the dirt.

Dean continued to watch. Then he cocked his head slightly and squinted through the low-light.

_You’re dreaming. You’re dreaming. I’m so sorry. You’re dreaming._

Dean frowned. “Hey Cas, that’s not a—Hey! Do you hear that?”

Castiel was humming. It didn’t sound familiar but it sounded _meaningful._

“Where did you hear that song, Cas?”

“Around.”

 _Scritch. Scratch. Scritch_. Went the stick in the dirt. The same words over and over again.

“Dammit,” Dean cursed, jumping to his feet and spinning around. “There it is again.”

“Dean.”

“Yeah, Cas,” Dean said absently, still peering into the dark. He was jostled suddenly. “Dude, whoa man, what did you shove me, for?” Dean turned back but the angel was still scratching into the dirt. _You’re dreaming. I’m sorry. You’re dreaming_.

“Dean. Dean. Dean!”

“Dude, what?”

“I didn’t say anything,” Castiel looked up. Though his face wasn’t _his_ face. Softer, with warmer eyes, not clouded by insanity. His hair was a loose and wild corona on his head. A mouth accustomed to smiling.

“You have to wake up now.”

xx

“Dean! Wake up!”

Dean sprung up. He was in the white room again, with the honey floors and the gossamer curtains. The fan was clicking above his head, a breeze was coming in through the open window, and gentle-eyed Castiel was peering down at him.

“I’m so sorry, Dean. I don’t know what happened. Your consciousness seemed to get stuck for a moment. You were nearly hysterical and Sam couldn’t calm you down. I… I just acted.”

Dean stared up at Castiel mutely, feeling as if he was becoming just as unhinged as the angel of his timeline. It had felt so real, being back there. So which was it? Was here real or was there real? Were they both?

“I need to get him out,” Dean whispered.

“Shh, Dean. I know. And we will get you back. I promise.”

“He’s trapped and scared. You don’t understand. At this point he’d toss himself on the nearest pyre right now if he were allowed to. After everything he did. _I’m_ scared.”

“Dean, _what_ happened? What is so awful that you can’t tell me? Please Dean, I just want to help,” Castiel said gently.

“No, I can’t. I just can’t, Cas. I’m not going to put you through that. You don’t have to live through something that you didn’t do, all right? I just… I just need to know what’s real,” Dean put his head in his hands as he slumped over himself on the bed. He was still clad in nothing but the pajama pants from the night before and the white sheet pooled in his lap. He shivered as a light breeze ghosted over the bare skin of his chest. Castiel hovered beside him, not touching but reaching out.

“How can I help?” Castiel asked, his tone almost desperate.

Dean looked up. “Get me back."


	4. Part Three: The Enemy of My Friend

**Part Three: The Enemy of My Friend**

Castiel wasn’t sure if he was on the right track, he was never really sure when it came to this sort of thing. Gabriel had a tendency to wipe himself off the map, radar, sonar and any other device of human invention. And some devices which of course weren’t human invention.

It was cold, and the fact that Castiel felt it was such was a testament to just _how_ cold it was. He was in a desert, but it was unlike any desert most of humankind was familiar with. There was sand of course, sand all around him, but it reached up with great stretching, grasping fingers. Tore into the sky, searching and seeking, forever frozen in the last shape the harsh Antarctic wind had managed to blow it into. It was a forest of claws. It was unsettling, haunting and beautiful.

“Gabriel!” Castiel shouted. It was probably useless to call the archangel using his human voice but he had been searching for what seemed like hours – had been hours. John would be back from school soon. Sam was at work, which meant when school was done, John would be alone with Dean.

Normally this wasn’t an issue, but normally the Dean sitting in Castiel’s living room was the Dean he had chosen to spend the rest of his life with, and John’s father. This other Dean, this new, different Dean was - Castiel was now realizing - something of an unknown. Castiel could see just as clearly into that Dean’s soul as any other but it was still unsetting to think of John catching on to Dean not being his father.

“Castiel.”

Castiel turned at the sudden voice. It didn’t belong to Gabriel but it was familiar. Inias stood before him, eyes flickering anxiously around the frozen sand before eventually landing on Castiel.

“Hester,” Inias said.

“What?”

“It was Hester. Dean got stuck because of Hester. She’s trying to lock him away in his own nightmares of Purgatory so he cannot interfere with this timeline. She promised not to kill him. She gave no such promise about debilitating him. Be careful, Castiel. She may try again.”

Inias was gone as suddenly as he appeared and Castiel was only that much more determined to find Gabriel.

“Gabriel!” he shouted again, a snarl curling his lips. He could sense he was in the correct general location but the icy claws stretched on for miles in the centre of a wasteland that had been barren nearly as long as Castiel had lived. He couldn’t even begin to guess what drew his wayward brother here of all places; perhaps it was merely the fact that very few would choose to follow him.

Castiel had enough of the trudging and closed his eyes. It was more difficult to fly on the Earthly plain but it wasn’t impossible. It was easier to traverse in the in between spaces than contend with the solidness of the Earth. Regardless, Castiel uncoiled his wings, unfurling them wide on either side, the dual set soaring above his head, larger than they used to be but the same glimmering blue-black colour, and invisible to all but a select few humans.

The additional weight of the second pair took some getting used to, but Castiel had grown accustomed over the years. He beat down swiftly, the accompanying gust sending a few loose particles of sand and powdery snow swirling around him before Castiel was hovering in the thin air of the Antarctic.

From his new vantage point, it only took moments for Castiel to spot Gabriel’s previously secret retreat; it was almost offensive in how incongruous it was. It was an oasis of greenery, sparkling water and golden sand in the middle of all the bland grey.

Castiel couldn’t help but roll his eyes as he flew towards it, massive wings pumping lazily through the air. He landed light and silent, directly in front of Gabriel, glaring at the elder angel with an intensity Castiel had always been known for.

“Hiya Li’l C! See you discovered my home away from home!” Gabriel bubbled.

“Are you drunk?” Castiel asked blandly.

“As near as I can be!” Gabriel announced. Some of the swim-short clad young men behind Gabriel hooted in mirth as they knocked their hollowed-out coconuts together.

“That wasn’t even amusing,” Castiel frowned.

“You just have all the sense of humour of over-cooked seaweed,” Gabriel tutted. “What can I do for you, My Brother?”

“Anything we can help with?” a blonde young woman wearing a very small bikini had come up somehow without Castiel noticing and wrapped herself sinuously around him. Her brunette friend, similarly clad, curled around Castiel’s other side and ran sharp nails up his chest. Castiel impatiently shook both women off.

“I’m married,” he answered shortly. It wasn’t the strictest of truths but Castiel learned long ago that it was the easiest way to shake off advances.

The young women pouted, then flounced away, grabbing some of the young men as they bounced around Castiel.

“Gosh, Cassie, you’re such a spoil-sport,” Gabriel grumbled.

“You’re disrupting nature, Gabriel,” Castiel chastised, looking around the magically constructed tropical Oasis in the middle of Antarctica.

Gabriel waved it off. “I’ll turn it back, always do. Now what brought you all the way out here?”

“Dean.”

“Wow, imagine my surprise.”

“Gabriel. Enough. This is serious.”

“Again, imagine my surprise. Out with it Little B, I got carnal pleasures to explore and iniquities to commit.”

Castiel glared, having quite enough of his brother’s foolishness and took advantage of his newly acquired status. He snapped his fingers and Gabriel’s Oasis disappeared along with all the poor unsuspecting and beguiled young bodies. A brief touch to the forehead and the two of them stumbled into Gabriel’s corner of Heaven.

“Oh I should so smite your ass for that,” Gabriel fumed, the walls rattling.

“Father would only bring me back again,” Castiel rolled his eyes. “Now listen. _Please._ ”

xx

Dean was nervous as he entered the brightly decorated hallways. Castiel had gone off to do Heavenly things and had left directions and the name of the school for Dean in case the angel didn’t return in time. Dean was a little bit early, the corridors were still silent but there was the steady hum of hundreds of tiny bodies detectable in the building.

John’s classroom was on the second floor, nearly at the very far end of the building. Dean stopped outside the closed door. There were pictures stuck to the wood of groups of young boys and girls standing alongside a slender young man with brown hair and glasses. Dean squinted at the picture and whistled low. If that was John’s teacher they sure seemed to start them off young. Or maybe Dean was just old. He rolled his shoulders and felt the pops and sighed. Yeah, he was old. Especially in this damn body.

“Hey Dean.”

Dean spun and silently panicked. Castiel didn’t brief him in the event of encountering other parents. The woman standing in front of him with a little girl attached to her hand also looked ridiculously young. If he were to guess her age he’d put her around twenty-six but her other child was at least eleven so that would mean she started really early. Maybe she just had one of those faces.

“Hey,” Dean said tightly.

“Castiel back from his business trip yet?” she asked.

“Oh, ah… yeah. Working late again today, though,” Dean said still uneasy.

“You never worry?” she asked. She blushed then. “Sorry, that is totally not my place to ask.”

“What do you mean worry?” Dean asked, genuinely confused.

“Never mind. Forget I said anything,” she waved it off.

“Oh hello Dean, Bailey,” another woman had come up to the group. She also had a child attached to her hand but had one on her hip as well.

“Hi Ellie,” Bailey greeted.

Dean gave a mental sigh of relief. At least he had names now.

“Where’s your baby?” Ellie asked, giving Dean a puzzled look. “You always have him with you. Or is Castiel home?”

“Ah… Jass is with Sammy and Mary,” Dean said. That was weird? It seemed silly of him to drag the poor kid around with him when Jasper could have a lot more fun playing with Sam out in the backyard. It was hot today, hotter than June generally got and Sam had filled the small wading pool with water for the kids. Seeing them in the kiddy-pool made Dean want an adult-sized one in the heat, but he contented himself with sitting in the few inches of water while Jasper alternated between sitting quietly on Dean’s lap and slapping small waves in the shallows.

“So Castiel is away again?” Ellie asked. The two women shared significant looks that went completely over Dean’s head. _What the hell?_

“Just until tonight,” Dean answered slowly.

“Oh man,” Bailey grinned crookedly. “I’d freak out if my guy was off so much.”

“Me too, I hate my husband just going to weekend conferences, and he only has one or two a year,” Ellie commiserated.

Dean was saved by saying anything more by the electronic bell ringing shrilly overhead. Almost in unison, rubber-footed chairs squeaked along linoleum and doors began to open. The volume picked up instantly as excited voices rushed into the hallways.

“Remember,” the scrawny young man was now visible and he was speaking over the noise as he stood by the now open door, “tomorrow is the absolute _last_ day for you to turn in your work. School’s out soon, Kiddos, but you gotta hand in your stuff if you wanna pass! Don’t forget!”

“Bye, Mr. Lake.”

“See you, Mr. Lake.”

“Have a good night!”

Dean listened to the whir of childish voices and searched through the crowd for the one that belonged to him. He was feeling overwhelmed by all the little bodies whirling around his legs and jostling him.

“Are you all right, Dean?” Bailey asked.

“Gosh! I hope we didn’t upset you,” Ellie added.

“No, ah… I’m good. Tired,” Dean raised his voice over the noise.

They had both gathered their children by now. Bailey a little boy and Ellie a little girl. Each woman waved and navigated through the hall as easily as water through a stream. He envied their skill for a minute while he continued to look around for John. There were a few more children dallying in the classroom so he hadn’t panicked yet, but he was certainly feeling close to it.

It was also sinking in rapidly, in this moment, that this was not his world. This was so far removed from his world it was practically alien. Even when he spent that year with Lisa and Ben he rarely picked Ben up from school. The boy took the bus most of the time and when he needed to be home faster, Lisa would get him. The house Dean shared with Castiel and Sam though, was twenty minutes out by car, so there was certainly no bussing it for John.

Castiel explained that the only house they could afford had been in the area they had chosen, but the better school had been in the higher middle class neighbourhood where Dean was now. It was either angel-express or daddy-express. No in between. Dean understood the reasoning of wanting John in what was considered a better school, though the drive kind of sucked.

“You okay Dad?”

Finally! _Child._

“Jeeze, Kid, where’d you run off to?” Dean asked.

John stuck his tongue out at Dean, though he was grinning and Dean figured it was a pretty common occurrence between other-Dean and the boy so Dean didn’t chastise, but maybe he should have. He really had no fucking clue.

“I was cleaning the whiteboards, my classroom job for this week,” John explained. “Didn’t Pop say I might be a bit late?”

Probably. Just not to me.

“Who knows,” Dean grinned. “Ready to get gone?”

“Oh yeah, definitely,” John nodded eagerly.

“You got any of those assignments your teacher was talking about?” Dean asked as they began to walk down the corridor. John’s bag looked conspicuously empty.

John sent Dean a puzzled look. He said slowly, “No. I finished mine weeks ago.” The ‘duh, Dad’ was implied.

Great, another screw up.

“Oh, right,” Dean said.

“You’re okay, Dad?” the question was more insistent this time.

“Yeah… Yeah, Kiddo. Just the latest job took a bit extra out of me. It was a doozy,” Dean lied. He hoped that didn’t cross any boundaries. Did they discuss the hunting with the kids?

“Okay. Well don’t forget about baseball tonight. You said you’d be there to watch my game. Pete’s mom is gonna drive me but you said you’d go. And Uncle Sam and Pop. Be sure Pop comes, please Dad? He’s missed the last few.”

Dean winced. Poor kid. Dean supposed Castiel still had a tendency to shake a tail feather and disappear for days if the occasion warranted it. It just sucked that it affected his kids… Their kids… Cas’ kids.

“I’m sure he’ll be there, Monkey,” Dean squeezed the boy’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” John said quietly.

xx

When they reached the house, John kicked off his shoes, dropped his bag, and disappeared out the back door. Dean followed at a more sedate pace only to see a trail of clothes leading across the backyard. He smiled fondly and picked them up, gathering them together.

Sam, finally rescued from pool duty now that John was there to sit with the younger kids, retreated from the splash radius and joined Dean on the patio. The kids were still in clear view however.

“Did you have a refreshing dip?” Dean smirked.

“You’d think that, wouldn’t you,” Sam pulled his wet t-shirt away from his skin and then dropped it. It fell back with a heavy sounding _plop_. “FYI Big Brother, your baby learned to splash bigger. Enjoy that for bath-time.”

Dean winced. “Thanks.”

“You look off, what’s up?” Sam asked, finally taking a seat next to Dean.

Dean shrugged. “I’m not good at… This whole thing,” Dean gestured expansively. “I screwed up again when I picked up John. He’s gonna figure it out soon and then he’ll probably be freaked, or Cas will be pissed. I don’t know. I’m _not_ a dad, Sam. Then there were these moms at the school while I was waiting. They kept on pulling sad faces at me and mentioning how terrible it was that Cas was away all the time, and how if their husbands were away as much they’d freak. What does that even mean?”

Sam chuckled, “The Paranoid Pollys.”

“Huh?”

“Bailey and ah… Ellie?” Sam asked.

“Yeah,” Dean nodded.

“You named them the Paranoid Pollys because they always act like Cas is about to cheat on you every second he’s away, or something. They’ve implied it more than once. You figured they don’t trust their partners and they’re projecting or something. I know Ellie’s on her second marriage and Bailey’s been engaged twice but it always fell through.”

“God, are you saying we are not only a part of, but we partake in suburban gossip?” Dean asked, white-faced.

Sam laughed, “’Fraid so!” The larger man slapped his brother’s back, sending Dean forward in his seat. “Want to know something worse?”

“Not really, no,” Dean grimaced.

“Well tough, ‘cause I’m telling you anyway. You’re pretty well the Queen Bee of the housewives.”

“What?!” Dean squawked. “How in the world did I end up the chick in this relationship?”

Sam laughed again, “Don’t worry about it. The ladies just got it in their heads because you’re the one who ends up being home more and you make the best pie in the district. They equate that with ‘wife’ in their worlds. You haven’t grown a vagina or anything. You’re still pretty much regarded as an alpha male outside of our little slice of Subugatory.”

Dean winced.

Sam’s eyes widened. “Dude, I am so sorry! I wasn’t… I’m… Shit.”

“It’s all right, Sam. I should probably get Jasper out of the pool. He’s been in a while.” Dean got up quickly and headed over to the laughing children.

“Dean!” Sam called after him. “I—”

“Seriously, Sam. It’s fine.” Dean swooped down and picked up the baby, he held him tight, unmindful of the damp and grabbed one of the towels sitting on the table on his way back into the house. He wrapped Jasper up in it, pulling the little frog-head shaped hood over the baby soft hair and shut the sliding doors probably harder than he needed.

“Dada sad?” Jasper asked, blinking up with wide blue eyes.

“N… no. I…” Dean trailed off. “No, I’m scared. I’m really, really scared and maybe I shouldn’t be telling you that, but you’re a year, it’s not like you’re going to remember or anything, right? It’s just everything is fucked up, Little Man. The minute I let myself relax and be happy and forget for a while that I’m a stranger walking through someone else’s life, it comes back up and smacks me in the damn face. My Cas is out there and alone somewhere and I have no way to get to him. None at all. I don’t even know _why_ I’m here and he’s not. You know? What makes me so special that I get to play Time Lord, huh?” Dean had gone into his and Castiel’s shared bedroom and shut the door. He climbed onto the bed and cradled Jasper against him, resting his chin lightly on the baby’s head.

“I’m just really, really scared, Kiddo. I’m not used to it.”

Jasper wriggled around and put tiny baby hands on Dean’s jaw. “No scared.”

Dean had to gape at the depth of understanding and the oddly serious expression in the tiny child’s eyes.

“Little Dude, I’m pretty sure you aren’t supposed to understand yet,” Dean mused. “Maybe who your Papa and I are and everything, but...”

“Papa?”

“Ah, he’s not here.”

Jasper reached out and pressed a small hand against Dean’s chest. “Papa.”

“No, Kiddo, I’m Daddy. Well not _yours_ technically, but for all intents and purposes…”

Jasper pressed again, right over Dean’s heart. “Papa. No scared.”

“Whoa, whoa, you are not seriously telling me don’t be afraid because Castiel is in my heart, right? Cuz that would be way beyond your ken, Kid. Way beyond.”

Jasper just blinked and began to chatter and sing.

“Complete coincidence,” Dean muttered to himself. “Has to be.”

Jasper settled against him, still singing baby nonsense and Dean just sat and listened.

xx

“That’s becoming a habit of yours,” Castiel’s voice stirred Dean from his half-doze.

Dean looked up and noticed the angel looked haggard but a little less tense. The hunter figured that could only be good so didn’t comment.

Earlier, he had gotten up just long enough to change Jasper into a one-piece jumper but had retreated back to his safe bedroom haven shortly after, baby still in his arms. Right now the only thing keeping him grounded was the little boy with Castiel’s eyes.

“What time is it?” Dean asked sleepily. He felt a nagging suspicion he had to be somewhere.

“Quarter after four,” Castiel replied. He was over at the dresser, staring into it while he pulled off his trench-coat, tie and suit. Dean found himself watching as Castiel stripped out of his ‘work’ clothes and into jeans and a t-shirt. Why he didn’t just whammy them off was beyond Dean.

Four-fifteen. Oh shit. “John’s game! I promised!”

Castiel turned, snapping on his metal watch. “Dean, it’s all right. The game doesn’t start for another half-hour. According to Sam, Layla came and got John not too long ago for practise. I only just got back. We’ll make the game. I swear.”

“You were gone awhile.” Dean settled back again, rubbing his eye with the back of one hand while the other cradled Jasper.

“Yes, there’s some silly nonsense up in Heaven. I needed Gabriel to deal with it and you’re well aware of how elusive he can be when he puts his mind to it. I searched the more obvious places first before I finally tracked him to the desert in Antarctica. He was living the very essence of hedonism.”

Dean frowned, “There’s a desert in Antarctica? Like with sand and shit?”

Castiel chuckled. “Yes.”

“Wait, wait… It’s still _cold_ , right? I’m confused.”

“He constructed a tropical oasis and flew in various, um… enjoyments.”

“So what’s this thing in Heaven?” Dean wanted to know.

“You needn’t worry. It’s taken care of,” Castiel smile looked forced. Dean recognized it from his own Castiel’s face when the angel was being evasive. Or at least, he recognized it from before Cas was crazy. Needless to say, it unsettled Dean.

“You aren’t telling me everything,” Dean said, not able to help the accusatory tone slipping into his voice. He had sudden and gut-wrenching flashbacks to ‘Superman going Darkside’ and couldn’t stop the quick shudder that danced down his spine.

“We should get going,” Castiel said suddenly. “I’ll get Jasper’s bag.”

“Cas,” Dean’s tone was filled with warning.

Castiel must have recognized it because he stopped dead mid-retreat. “You’re right,” Castiel admitted with a sigh. “I’m not. But trust me when I say, you don’t need to worry about it. I’m taking care of it.”

Dean felt sick and cold, hugging Jasper closer. The boy cooed, blinking curiously between his parents though he continued to be relatively calm.

“Look,” Dean tried to keep his tone level and his temper in check. “The last time I heard that from your mouth, or something similar anyway, it didn’t go well. So tell me.”

Castiel turned suddenly and raised his chin. “Very well. You share with me what you mean by that and I’ll reciprocate,” Castiel said archly.

Dean opened his mouth and snapped his shut again, then gritted out, “No.”

“Then, no,” Castiel returned coolly. “We’re both keeping secrets, Dean.”

“I’m doing it to protect you!” Dean shouted suddenly. Jasper whimpered. Castiel glared. Dean flinched and hushed the baby.

Castiel and Dean were locked in a stare, deep and intense. Now this was familiar ground. While it succeeded in putting Dean in recognizable territory, it also served to stab a knife through his chest. This intensity, the locked gazes, the mental stand-offs. They were all familiar, but familiar from _before_.

The fight went out of Dean. Now it was just scared doe-eyes and a clouded gaze. An eerily vacant smile and strangely poignant speech before Castiel came out with something completely nonsensical again. That was Dean’s reality now. Looking at _this_ Cas in front of him though, he realized that didn’t have to be the case right now. They needed to work together, even if it meant keeping a few little secrets. Dean was doing it to protect Castiel, Castiel was likely doing the same.

“We shouldn’t fight,” Dean said quietly. “I… I don’t _want_ to fight. Not with you, not after…”

“Yes,” Castiel agreed gently. “You’re right. We’ll just have to accept this for now, won’t we? Just please, trust that you’re safe with me.”

Now _that_ Dean didn’t doubt for a second. He couldn’t help the unabashedly genuine, “Always.”

That made the softer, more intimate smile appear on Castiel’s familiar lips again and the angel came forward and kissed Dean without ceremony. Dean was startled for a moment and Castiel tensed, retreating.

“I—”

“Shh,” Dean interrupted, moving back in. Sometimes, he just couldn’t care anymore. This was still Castiel and he was offering comfort in his easy kisses. He was giving Dean something the green-eyed man needed right now more than he could willingly admit. So, he didn’t think and just took. Castiel made a surprised, pleased noise and drew Dean closer.

Jasper giggled between them.

Dean and Castiel pulled away but stayed close enough that their foreheads were pressed together even though they were blushing faintly and giving each other slightly self-conscious, lopsided smiles.

“That actually happens a lot,” Castiel relayed. “Jasper, I mean. John before that.”

“Oh well, at least they know their daddies love each other,” Dean chuckled.

“Yes,” Castiel said quietly.

Dean shifted back and coughed. “We should probably get going, huh? Don’t want John to get upset.”

“Yes, of course,” Castiel nodded. “I’ll get Jasper’s bag. You see if Sam and Mary are ready to go.”

Dean had to revel in how _easy_ it was; this gentle domesticity between them. Natural, right, _comfortable_ and for the first time since Dean arrived, he didn’t panic.

I _am_ going to get this. He silently vowed.

Dean felt a small hand over his heart.

“Papa,” Jasper said. Dean closed his much larger hand over the baby’s and went to find Sam.

God help him, he would get this.

xx

Dean was a little startled that as soon as they crested the short hill overlooking the baseball diamond, John’s small head snapped up and turned towards them. A wide grin spread across the boy’s face and suddenly he was scrambling across the packed sand and grass, making a b-line for them. Dean, Cas, and Sam kept walking and John kept running only to collide purposely against Castiel’s legs, hugging the angel around the waist tightly.

“Papa, you made it,” John gushed.

Dean saw a flash of guilt steal over Castiel’s blue gaze and the hunter had to look away. He felt Castiel move beside him and then the angel was crouching in front of the child, hugging the boy tightly.

“I’m sorry I missed so many… I…” Castiel trailed off and Dean didn’t blame him. There was no real excuse and the one he usually used about being away for work was starting to fall flat. “I’m sorry,” Castiel just repeated instead.

“You’re here now. The game only just started. You’ll get to see me bat. They may even have me pitch when we switch. I’ve been practising and I’m getting pretty good. Dad’s been helping me in the backyard with it. He pro’ly told you though,” John bubbled, leading Castiel towards the field by the hand.

Castiel actually look surprised and shot a glance over to Dean. Dean held his one free hand up, it wasn’t him. It was _Other_ Dean.

“No I… I hadn’t heard,” Castiel admitted.

Dean peered curiously at the archangel’s drawn expression. He looked down at Jasper who was paying no attention whatsoever and was otherwise engaged with something up in the sky.

“Well you’re no help,” Dean muttered. “Hey, ah… Sammy? Something I don’t know?”

Sam looked away. “Not my place, Dean.”

Okay, that pretty well settled it. Dean and Castiel were talking, for real. Maybe all along this wasn’t _Dean’s_ lesson to learn.

His concerns however, were quickly put out of his head as they watched the game. Castiel getting just as, if not more, wrapped up in the children’s venture than Dean was. It was fun, more fun than Dean remembered ever having at Ben’s games. Even there he felt like a bit of an outsider. It was silly, but it was true. After all he was only Lisa’s boyfriend and some of the other moms didn’t really seem to approve. It made things a little uncomfortable for Dean when Lisa wasn’t able to make the games with him.

There was also a different sense of pride when Dean watched John. He wasn’t Dean’s, but he _was_. For all intents and purposes that was Dean’s kid out there, not one he was borrowing. But _his_ – flesh, blood and soul. With a little extra tossed in courtesy of angel-grace. Also, John was a little pitching machine out there. The kid was kicking some serious ass. Dean cheered extra loud when John struck the third kid in a row out, with carefully aimed throws.

Then without thinking, Dean shouted, “That’s my boy!”

John looked over at the stands with a grin so wide Dean was nearly blinded. It didn’t help when he turned to Cas and saw an unnameable _something_ in his blue eyes. It made Dean feel warm, at peace suddenly. Safe, welcome, where he belonged. It was _right_.

“I got it wrong,” Dean whispered suddenly.

Castiel heard him anyway and turned a curious gaze on Dean. “What?”

“I keep telling myself I don’t belong here, this isn’t my life. This is _another_ Dean’s life, but that’s wrong. This _is_ mine. Here with you, Sammy, Mary, _our_ boys. I do belong. I’m not out of place, I’m just out of time.”

Castiel’s eyes widened.

“There’s more to it, though,” Dean foraged on. “You and I both need to learn, I think. Earlier, with John and what Sam said. I think maybe I’m here for you too, Cas. And I think we are going to have a long, serious talk when we finish up here.”

“Dean,” Castiel’s voice was wary.

Dean shook his head. “You aren’t getting out of it. I’m sorry.”

Castiel nodded stiffly.

Dean tried to dispel the seriousness of the last few minutes by reaching down with his free hand and grasping tightly at Castiel’s where it was curled on the bench between them. Castiel looked startled once again at the sudden contact but turned his palm over so they could link fingers. Shyly, Castiel squeezed back and smiled at the ground.

xx

Jasper was put down hours ago, John was in bed and hopefully asleep now and Sam had made himself and Mary scarce once he saw the intent in the matching expressions on Dean and Castiel’s faces.

Now the two, the hunter and the angel, sat in silence in the living room – more neutral than the bedroom but still unfamiliar enough for Dean to put him on edge. Castiel, unsurprisingly, had brought them both short glasses filled with whiskey. Dean took two cursory sips; Castiel hadn’t even tried for the illusion of drinking. The angel’s drink was now set aside, watery and untouched on the coffee table. Dean stared at the glass balanced on his knee. Neither of them spoke for the last twenty minutes.

“This is ridiculous,” Castiel said suddenly.

Dean quirked a grin. “Yeah.”

“I mean honestly, since when can’t we speak to one another?” Castiel huffed.

Dean grimaced. “I suppose that’s a good an opening as any.”

Castiel furrowed his brow in confusion. “I suppose you’re going to explain.”

Dean nodded stiffly. “Cas, I… What sparked this entire thing is, well, you’re keeping me in the dark on a lot of things. A hell of a lot. I do get what you’re trying to do. But in my more recent experience, you hiding anything from me doesn’t go well. I think maybe you also hide things from your Dean and I want to tell you right now that is not a path you want to go down.

“I can’t begin to put myself in the middle of your relationship, you two got way too many years on me as a couple for that, but I know you. I know him. Hiding is only going to hurt one another in the end. So just, when he gets back, you really need to tell him everything and you can get your practice in by telling me what you’ve been hiding.”

Castiel bit his lip, looked down and away, before looking back up and saying firmly, “Very well, but only with the stipulation that you will explain to me exactly where this ‘experience’ of yours stems from. I want to know what it is you have been hiding as well, Dean. I think there’s more to what is going on with you being here than you’re telling me. I think perhaps that information will help me get you back.”

“Deal,” Dean said hollowly. “I’ll tell you, just… I need you to clear some things up for me, all right? I mean Bobby kind of implied that the relationship between you and me isn’t as rosy as you’re letting on. Then John’s, well… almost _desperation_ to have you at the game. Sam’s mysterious ‘not my place.’ I don’t get it. You and other Dean seem pretty solid, so what’s with all the trailing statements? Then there’s the whole other kettle of fish with your mysterious problems up in Heaven.”

It was Castiel’s turn to wince. “I suppose I’ve been selfish.”

“Okay…” Dean allowed.

“Please understand, Dean and I really are good together. I promise you, but things aren’t always easy. Especially lately. I have so much to take care of in Heaven, Gabriel’s been… Not at all helpful and I’m not, I’m not as present as I should be. It’s distressing John, which in turn is causing my Dean to be upset.

“We ah… fought, a few weeks ago. Pretty severely. I didn’t handle it well and disappeared for a while. We made up before you arrived here but it was still a work-in-progress. I took… advantage of you not being aware of the situation to, well… I suppose… It was nice just to have things like they used to be for a while, without the guilt and the animosity. John was very concerned for a while that you and I would be over.

“I still spoke with him while I was away but I didn’t come home. That’s why I’ve missed his last two games prior to this one, because you and I weren’t getting along. That wasn’t fair to John and I regret it but… You and I do have a tendency to bring out the worst in one another.”

Dean couldn’t deny that.

“Well, that’s not too bad,” Dean shrugged. “I mean I guess it was unfair of you to imply that we were the perfect couple but I get why you did. I’m not your Dean, and maybe knowing all your problems kind of intruded on your personal life. There’s more to it, though. You haven’t been running off in a tizzy the last few times because you and I were arguing.”

“No, you’re right,” Castiel nodded. “A few of the angels up in Heaven have been restless with your presence here – Anxious that it may disrupt our world. As I told you, you aren’t merely out of time here, you’re out of place. You have a different past than we do which makes you an anomaly.

“Different futures are one thing, but different pasts are… unsettling. It implies alternate realities. Alternate realties shouldn’t cross out of sync. I tried to assure them that your presence here was legitimate and that I would not risk my children. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t trust me.

“Gabriel was missing and I had to locate him. That is the only way their fears would be put aside. Gabriel is technically God’s Voice, now that he remains the only original archangel. They wanted to hear from him that this was all in The Plan. Even if it wasn’t _Our_ Father’s Plan.”

Castiel was hasty to add, “It’s all taken care of now.”

“Did they… Did they want to hurt me?” Dean asked uneasily.

“Yes,” Castiel answered quietly. “I didn’t want you to be concerned.”

They lapsed into quiet at that, silently mulling over what Castiel just revealed. Dean hoped (futilely he knew) that Castiel would forget to ask about Dean’s own evasions.

Castiel finally leaned forward and took a long sip from his drink, before he set it down on the table, the heavy glass bottom loud on the wood. “Your turn.”

Dean winced. “I really wish you wouldn’t ask. It really isn’t important. I mean in this world, it doesn’t matter.”

“I told you mine,” Castiel said pointedly. “That was the deal, Dean.”

Dean flinched. “Fucking _deals_.”

“I gather that implies far more than what just transpired between the two of us.”

“Yeah, a fuck-load more,” Dean said bitterly. “I…” He really didn’t know how to begin.

Castiel contemplated for a moment before speaking, “I know where you were before you arrived here. I’m aware something bad happened between you and your Castiel and that your timeline skewed dramatically from the one I am familiar with. What with your entire year with Lisa and the implication that something occurred with Sam’s wall. I also know that you’ve mentioned your Castiel’s insanity on multiple occasions. What I don’t know is all the _why_ of everything. Does that help to give you a focal point?”

“Yeah, I guess. I’m not entirely clear on everything myself. I don’t know _why_ you made such massively different decisions in my world than in this one.”

“Why I did?” Castiel asked with no little trepidation.

“Yeah, Cas. You,” Dean said sadly. “Maybe we’ll never figure it out - all the whys of everything - but my world goes off kilter a lot sooner than you may think. I mean, after Sam left, you did too and I don’t mean as just a day trip. I mean you _left_. There were no surprise visits at Lisa’s. No relaying of information on Crowley and _you_ were the one to pull Sam out, despite him being soulless.

“Maybe that was the first straw, you know? You feeling that guilt that you brought Sam back wrong maybe stopped you from coming to me when you could have. I think you _tried_. One day I seemed to feel you there, but you never appeared. I didn’t realize until later – way later – that my feeling you without you appearing was a possibility. You seemed more than inclined to play the invisible man in my world,” Dean couldn’t help the bitterness that slipped out.

Castiel furrowed his brow. “That’s… I find that peculiar.”

“Well hold onto your trench coat, Sweetheart, it gets weirder,” Dean sighed. “You were MIA pretty consistently that year. You would tell us that it was the War in Heaven thing keeping you so occupied and of course I believed you, for the most part. You may have been more distant than I was used to but you were still _Cas_. Sam was a little harder to persuade and Bobby was on the fence for most of it. They weren’t aware of our, ah… previous relationship though.”

“We weren’t together any longer?” Castiel frowned.

“No,” Dean shook his head. “I guess not. I mean, Dude, you left me for a year an _entire_ year. Then you were away more than you were there and it just… It really hurt, honestly. I was covering it up with my angst over Lisa. Sam thought that’s what it was. I just let him go on thinking it.

“We figured out he was soulless pretty quickly and I just couldn’t deal. Not with him, and not with you. Or the lack of both of you, I guess. It was rough, I clung to Lisa as long as I could but it was never really _real_. Despite what I fooled myself into thinking. It was all you, Man. I only really just realized that fairly recently, to be honest. Anyway, things were rough but they seemed to get better after we thought you killed Crowley.”

“Thought I did?”

“Yeah, I’m getting to that. Things were pretty good, you were around more often, helping more, coming when we called like old times and I thought we might be able to get back on track. Then… then shit hit the fan it a huge way. We found out what Crowley had been up to; he wanted Purgatory. Which I understand was consistent with your world.”

“Yes,” Castiel nodded.

“Well, Crowley went overboard in mine and I don’t know if it happened in yours, but out of revenge, the Mother of All was pulled out of Purgatory.”

Castiel shook his head. “She never manifested in my timeline. It was close, but no, she didn’t.”

Dean sighed, feeling sick. This Castiel’s response implied more than what he had originally thought or hoped. Crowley had only been as sadistic as he was with the monsters because of _Castiel_. Dean didn’t want to dwell on that too much, not right now. It didn’t change anything anymore.

“Anyway, we found out that my Cas was working with Crowley all along. I had him trapped in Holy Fire. _Holy Fire_ , can you imagine? I know what that does to an angel, how it pushes them to the brink, but I did it anyway; that’s how terrified I was.”

Castiel let out a shaky breath. “Crowley did, well, he _tried_ to convert me. I was working with him for a short while and yes, it was behind Dean’s back for a time but he managed to convince me to stop. D… did you try?”

Dean closed his eyes. “God, of _course_ I did. I tried so hard to keep my trust in you, to convince you what you were doing was wrong but, well, it didn’t take. Maybe a part of you was bitter over Lisa, or maybe you were just that damn scared. I don’t even know, Man, it just seemed… well it seemed fucking out of character for you, is what is seemed. Nothing I said worked and…” Dean took a deep breath, “This is the part that I really wanted to avoid telling you.”

Castiel nodded stiffly. “I’m ready.”

“I hadn’t been able to convince you to stop working with Crowley, like I said, you two were getting closer to what you needed, too. I tried intervening one more time but everything just blew up from there. Lisa and Ben were abducted, you helped torture and kill Bobby’s ex-girlfriend who was a Purgatory Beast that had been in hiding for years. Then,” a deep breath, “then you broke Sam’s wall.”

Castiel recoiled as if he had been slapped, slowly shaking his head. “How could I— No, I can’t believe…”

Dean closed his eyes. “It’s true. You broke it. Put him out of commission to distract me because you and Crowley made a deal to rip open Purgatory then share the souls. Though I gathered after he took Ben and Lisa, you changed the plan. You wanted me to back you up so bad, Cas, to trust you, but after everything I just couldn’t and I didn’t. I don’t know if that’s what eventually pushed you over the edge but something did and you stole the spell, the blood. Everything.

“You opened Purgatory and sucked up everything you could. You killed Balthazar, killed Raphael and then… Then declared yourself the new God.”

Castiel was utterly still and silent, and also pale as a sheet. Dean plowed forward with his eyes closed and didn’t see.

“You basically went on a spree, though oddly enough, kept Crowley alive. Then the souls got too much and they started eating away at you. Eventually, after _weeks_ you realized what was happening and came to us for help, but by then it was way too late. They had already latched onto you. We got the souls put back but…”

“What?” Castiel’s voice was cracked and raw, barely a whisper and barely loud enough for Dean to catch.

“The Leviathan wouldn’t let go,” Dean whispered.

“No,” Castiel whispered.

“I’m sorry, you let them out. They began to slowly take over the country. Filtering out through the water and you… I thought you died. You just disappeared into the water and didn’t come back up. We went on without you – Sam, Bobby and I. Then Sam’s wall started to crumble and he began to lose it; we kept it at bay for a while but then Bobby died.”

“No.”

“God, I really don’t… I lost everyone. Sam was insane, you were gone in the drink. At the time, we thought Bobby was gone completely. I had to lock Sam up, Cas. There was nothing else I could do, the wall was gone and I _couldn’t_ help. One last ditch effort, I called everyone I could think of; all the while the Leviathans were getting closer and closer to taking over the world. Then… Then I found you again.”

Dean finally looked at Castiel. “You were _alive_ , but you weren’t _you_. You were posing as a healer, with a wife and all and I couldn’t even. Just seeing you again, everything came flooding back and I was so _mad_. No, I was fucking pissed, but you didn’t even know who the fuck you were! You were some bastard named Emmanuel who had been alive for _months_ helping people, and I didn’t even know. You didn’t know me! You didn’t come back to me. Though I still _needed_ you.

“I took you to Sam and well… A lot of shit happened but you remembered and then I… I lost. You. Again. You took Sam’s hell-baggage and you were gone. We left you, out of your mind in that loony-bin. I barely looked back but it was all still there. The anger, the fear and even, God, even a little bit of disgust.”

Castiel winced.

“Then—”

“I don’t want to hear anymore,” Castiel whispered, his eyes bright and wild. “I can’t, I can’t hear anymore. Please, I… This isn’t…” Castiel was standing, backing away something very close to terror blazoned across his face.

Dean recognized it all too easily and he stood quickly, reaching out. “No, no… Look I—”

“No! Stop! Stop. I can’t…”

“Castiel, that’s not the end,” Dean tried reaching out.

“It’s enough,” Castiel keened, eyes swimming with tears. Then in a blink the angel was gone.

“Cas?! Castiel!” Dean shouted to the ceiling. “Castiel! It didn’t end there, listen to me! It’s okay now, I mean it! Cas! Please!”

Nothing.

“Please,” Dean croaked, throat tight and eyes wet.

After that Dean went outside and screamed himself hoarse. He was grateful he still had presence of mind enough to take his frantic calls out of doors in order to avoid waking up the three children in the house. Sam, still with hunter senses tuned or just brother instincts flaring, found Dean about an hour later. His worry was clear on his face, hazel eyes anxious in the dim light.

Dean was sagged against the Impala at this point; he had tried explaining during his monologue about how the whole mess with his Cas was water under the bridge now, but Dean wasn’t even sure if his pleas reached Castiel’s ears wherever the angel had flitted off to.

Dean had done exactly what he had been attempting to avoid since he arrived in this messed-up world – Destroyed someone else’s life as effectively as his own. Did he break this world’s Castiel? Send him off the deep-end? Dean was so raw with emotion and worry that he probably wasn’t thinking all that straight but still, Castiel was _gone._

“Damnit Cas! What about your boys?” Dean shouted out loud, voice wrecked.

“Your boys too, Dean,” Sam said quietly.

Dean flinched. “No.”

“Dean,” Sam pleaded. “What do you mean? What happened?”

“I tricked myself, Sam. I tricked myself into thinking I wouldn’t fuck this life up as royally as I fucked up my own, but because we fucking agreed on fucking full disclosure I screwed it all up. Cas told me him and his Dean didn’t get on all the time like everyone hinted at, but only after I promised to tell him the whole truth, now look what I’ve done. They were only just back on track and I may have broken his Cas just like I broke my own. He didn’t even let me _finish_ , Sam. I wasn’t _done_.

“My Cas sure screwed up big time, but I was on my way to forgiving him almost whole hog, I really was. I… I didn’t have the luxury at the time to keep holding grudges. We needed Cas and Cas needed me to forgive him. Even just a little. At the end of the night, how could I not, you know? He was still _Cas_. All of us fucked up more than any creature – human or otherwise – should be entitled to, really, but if we can’t forgive one another for it, what do we got left? But before I could finish he just,” Dean made an aborted gesture with his hand and let it drop with a loud slap against his thigh.

“Dean, what happened?” Sam asked gently, coming over to lean next to Dean. “In your world?”

“I can’t,” Dean shook his head. “Not again.”

xx

It had been two days since Castiel had taken off. Two days without a sighting or a word. John was beginning to get anxious, Dean could tell and not only that, the boy would flash him accusatory little glares from time to time, when John thought Dean couldn’t see. Dean didn’t know if those glares were directed at him- _him_ because John suspected, or if they were directed at dad-him because John blamed Dean for Castiel taking off again. Dean though, honestly, was just way too tired to figure it out.

The last several nights, ever since Castiel left, Dean’s sleep had been restless, filled with vivid Purgatory dreams that always left Dean waking up confused. It was starting to wear him down and everyone could sense it. Dean was trying his best for the boys, Mary, and Sam but he knew it was falling a little flat. Dean really, honestly didn’t know how to be this man that they all expected him to be. Even Sam, who _knew_ the truth, seemed to expect more than Dean could give, especially on top of being so tired.

Maybe though, _maybe_ if he could just get some proper sleep he’d be all right again. Maybe if he just took a little nap the dreams wouldn’t affect him. Then he could be better, for everyone. Then he could try again to contact Cas. For real instead of just his rapid babbling in times when he was alone, or just with Jasper.

“Sam?” Dean found his brother downstairs reading to Mary in the small living area Sam had set up in the open space near the far wall of the basement.

“Hiya Unca Dean,” Mary greeted shyly.

“Hey Princess,” Dean smiled. Hopefully the girl wouldn’t be able to tell it didn’t reach his eyes.

“Yeah Dean?” Sam asked, standing up like an eager puppy, almost vibrating in his need to help.

“I’d hate to… I mean, this sucks of me to ask, but could you watch the boys for a bit? I think… I just really need to get some sleep.”

Sam nodded. “Sure thing, Dean. You rest, you look like you need it.”

Dean smiled again, this time more genuine even if it was small. “Cool. Thanks Sam. You’re awesome. Just two hours, shouldn’t need more than that. If I’m not up by then wake me, all right? Then the five of us can go out for dinner or something. My treat.”

“Sure, whatever you want, Dean.”

“Night-night , sleep-tight!” Mary called after Dean’s retreating back.

Dean turned for a moment to thank the girl then headed back upstairs. Yeah, all he needed was sleep.


	5. Part Four:  I’ll Follow You into the Dark

**Part Four: I’ll Follow You into the Dark**

_“…began to understand darkness: darkness as something solid and real, so much more than a simple absence of light. He felt it touch his skin, questing, moving, exploring: gliding through his mind. It slipped into his lungs, behind his eyes, into his mouth...”_

Dean blinked. It was cold again, damp. The surface he was resting on harsh against his skin. He sat up, uneasy, peering into the dark that surrounded him. He was in that now familiar half-light of the in between nowhere space that was Purgatory. Dean shuddered.

“Cas?” Dean asked.

“I read it because of _Bad Omens_ you know,” Castiel smirked, it had a wild, untamed edge to it that Dean now associated with Crazy-Castiel. “They had it in the hospital. Seems an odd book for a hospital. You know, there was a demon named Crowley in it… He was… well, not nice, but… Familiar? Anyway, it was a good book. Then I read more books. _Bad Omens_ though, it’s oddly reminiscent of our lives. I just wish our lives ended as happily. Darkness, darkness is something ‘solid and real.’ I can feel it even now. That’s not from _Bad Omens_ though.”

“Our lives haven’t ended yet,” Dean spat out.

“My life then,” Castiel corrected quietly. “My life. Can a creature such as myself even claim to have had a life, Dean?”

Dean couldn’t answer. Wasn’t sure what to say. Hell, he didn’t _want_ to answer. So instead he said, “It’s not _Bad_ Omens, Cas. It’s ‘good.’”

Castiel looked up then, head cocked curiously like a bird. “Is it?”

“Yeah, Dude, I read,” Dean answered distractedly, even though he knew, deep down, that wasn’t really what Castiel was questioning. Dean, with his frequent visits to this dream world began to understand that this Cas never said anything without it _meaning_ something. A brief flash of Castiel holding up the _Sorry_ game had Dean closing his eyes. Even then. Even then he said so much without saying a thing.

“How could I have been such an idiot?” Dean wanted to know.

“Neverwhere,” Castiel said.

“What?” Dean frowned.

“The other book was _Neverwhere_. The hospital had it, too. It was sad, strange. All twisted up. A world out of a world within a world. _Neverwhere_.”

“Appropriate,” Dean grimaced. “I _need_ to know what’s real.”

“Whatever you want to be, I guess,” Castiel shrugged. “You keep running away. Going away. Then I’m alone. You can’t play games alone… Well you can. It’s just very boring. I spy with my little eye, something that is broken.”

“Cute Cas,” Dean snorted. “A little harsh, but a cute.”

“You stepped on my stick, Dean. I need that for the fire. Now I need a new stick.”

Dean lost it then, leaping to his feet. “Goddamnit Cas! How can I tell anymore, huh? Is this your weird crazy double-speak or what? Or is it just about the fucking stick?!” Dean kicked the broken fragments, sending them tail-spinning into the bush.

“Sometimes a stick is just a stick,” Castiel replied. “You should stay. I need a new one and I don’t want you lost. You’re hard to reach when you get lost. It’s dark here.”

“I might wake up!” Dean called after Castiel as he began his slow creep away from the fire. It sounded like a threat, even to his own ears.

Dean was suddenly alone. Remarkably alone, he hunkered down against the oily trunk of the tree at his back, pulled his legs up and wrapped his arms around himself. His head was buzzing, like he had an angel on a low frequency whispering into his ear. It wasn’t pleasant. He supposed that was an understatement.

It really didn’t matter though. This dream Purgatory did funny things sometimes but he’d wake up. Sam would come and get him and then they would go out to dinner. Sam, Mary, John, Jasper, Ca—No, that wasn’t true. It would only be the five of them, not the six.

“What takes so fucking long to get a stick?” Dean muttered. He surprised himself by realizing he missed the boys already. It had been two solid days where he was sole caregiver and he was a natural. He’d also spent most of his life with someone else and he didn’t like being alone.

At least he was used to having Castiel with him in the dream world if not the boys. He was glad the boys weren’t here. Even inside his head – especially inside his head – it was dangerous for them. Though Cas, Cas was here, even if he wasn’t _there_. Wherever here was.

“Neverwhere,” Dean muttered sardonically. Where _the fuck_ was Cas?

“Cas! If you’re playing Hide-and-Seek, you forgot to tell me!” Dean shouted, unmindful of the lurking beasts he was always so cautious about. After all this wasn’t _real_. Right? “I mean I didn’t count or nothing!”

“That’s it,” Dean grumbled, “I’m waking up.” He looked around for something to jolt himself with. He thought of bashing his head against the slimy trunk of his tree briefly but settled for pinching himself in the end. He was nearly at his skin, about to pinch, when rustling came from his left. Dean paused and looked. Castiel was coming back.

“We can play Hide-and-Seek, Dean, but it might be dangerous here. Good thing I got an extra stick. Though I only have so many, you can only break a few before I don’t have any left.”

“Kind of like, bones, huh Cas?” Dean mused.

Castiel took on a puzzled expression. “That’s ridiculous.”

“No, you telling me anything is ridiculous, is ridiculous, Loony Toons. Remember my car? Naked. Bees. ‘Nough said.”

“That was an interesting encounter,” Castiel mused.

“That’s one word for it.”

“If you don’t like ‘interesting’ I can use ‘inveigling’ if you like.”

Dean flinched.

_Okay, if you don't like, uh, 'reckless', I could use 'insouciant', maybe._

“That does have different connotations however,” Castiel shrugged. “Though in this case, rather appropriate. You flinched Dean.”

“Yeah, not because of… What you said, whatever that means… Well kind of because of what you said. I just… Memories.”

“Yes, very dangerous,” Castiel mused, overly stern.

Dean narrowed his eyes. “Are you making fun of me?”

“We aren’t _having_ any fun, Dean.”

“No I mean…” Dean trailed off, then mostly to himself, “Why do I even bother?”

Castiel was methodically stacking his gathered sticks. Dean watched for a moment. Searching for a hidden meaning, wondering when his subconscious became so cryptic. Wondering where all these thoughts came from.

Dean frowned. “How long have I been here?”

Castiel frowned back. “Time is irrelevant here. Besides, neither of us know. Nothing can tell me. The sun doesn’t speak, or really even exist here. The animals converse in a language unknown to me and the insects are barely sentient. I _tried_ Dean.”

“Yeah, Cas, yeah. I know you did,” Dean whispered. “That’s funny, I’m usually getting pulled back by now.”

“Dean.”

Dean sprang to his feet, whipped his head up, but the voice hadn’t been external. Not this time. It was just wishful thinking that Castiel had been pulling him back.

“Dean.”

Dean snapped his head back down to Castiel.

“You nearly destroyed my fire,” Castiel pointed to where Dean’s toes where centimetres away from Castiel’s carefully arranged pile.

“Don’t say that, Cas,” Dean said, slumping back to the ground.

“Dean, you needn’t be so sad. It would just be an inconvenience to get enough sticks to build it up again. It wouldn’t be the end of the world, just… More work.”

Dean peered closely at Castiel who was sitting in a crouch, rear nearly touching the ground. His arms were crossed casually on top of his knees as he balanced, chin resting on them.

“Rebuild the fire,” Dean said.

“I don’t need to right now.”

They were silent again. Dean was waiting again to wake up. Usually when Castiel stopped speaking or when he would run off to play a game, Dean would wake up. Dean looked at the sky; it felt backwards and upside, like the dome was inverted above his head. He waited. Nothing.

“Cas, I think I’ve been here too long.”

“We both have. Stuck like this.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Dean pushed himself to his feet again and looked around carefully.

“Never.”

Dean turned and frowned at Castiel. “Sometimes.”

“Yes.” Castiel began to sing lowly, barely audible. “You’re a wonder, how bright you shine/A flickering candle in a short lifetime/A secret dreamer that never shows/If no one sees you then nobody knows.”

Dean stilled. “Cas?”

“Don’t keep yourself hidden way,” Castiel murmured.

“Thanks for the advice, Cas,” Dean said bitterly. “Can’t do much about that right now, can I? Where did you hear that song anyway? Hell, where did _I_ here that song. My subconscious, right?”

“There are things within us that we can’t help be there, Dean. We’ve picked them up through contact with others. Observed them on the street, merged them with ourselves when we didn’t think anyone was watching. Parts of you aren’t parts of you. Parts of you belong to a man whose life you are living. Parts of you don’t belong where you are right now, but parts of you need to stay buried.”

Dean’s hands went cold. “Something’s wrong.”

“I want to help, but I’m not allowed,” Castiel whispered.

“What’s going on, Cas?” Dean demanded. “Why haven’t I woken up yet?”

“Wrinkle in time. People don’t like it. _Angels_ don’t like it.”

“Cas, wha—”

Castiel’s head snapped up and around, he turned to Dean then said carefully, but urgently, “We should run now.”

Dean heard the howls before he saw the eyes, but he didn’t think about it long. He grabbed Castiel’s elbow and he ran.

xx

John was reading while Mary coloured and Sam played with Jasper. The house had been quiet for the last two hours, Sam wanting to ensure that his brother got the sleep he clearly needed. Sam’s personal theory was residual trauma from Dean’s transition through Time-Space and the entire body-hopping thing but Sam didn’t really discuss it with Dean. The older Winchester wasn’t too inclined to speak about it. Sam didn’t blame him.

Sam also realized by now, the body may be older, but Sam had nearly ten years on the soul that currently inhabited his big brother’s body and wasn’t that a quirky thought… Or did Hell count… Which meant Sam had, well… it was more math than Sam was willing to do right now. So Hell didn’t count.

That all aside though, Dean should have been up twenty minutes ago. Dean had a scary accurate internal clock that let him wake when he damn well pleased, unless he was sick or injured. But Dean was neither, which made it all the more strange that the other man hadn’t joined them in the living room yet.

“Hey, Squirt.”

John looked up from the fourth _Harry Potter_ novel. “Yeah?”

“Could you take your brother for a second and watch Mary? I’m gonna check on your dad.”

“Sure,” John agreed easily.

Sam stood and handed the baby to the eleven-year-old. He crossed the living area again, stooping low to comb a hand through Mary’s curly pigtails before heading down the hallway.

Dean and Castiel’s bedroom door was shut. Sam knocked but there was no response. Sam began to worry; Dean slept on a hair-trigger. A knock would jolt him awake in an instant, but Dean _had_ been having trouble sleeping. He’d said as much.

Sam felt a slight spike of anxiety deep in his gut as he eased the door open. He expected a blurry-eyed glare from his big brother, but received nothing. Absolutely nothing. Dean was utterly still.

xx

“ _Papa_.”

Castiel stilled and turned his head south, towards the United States. He was sitting on Mount Logan’s peak, the highest Mountain in Canada. He supposed he could have stayed more local but a part of him just needed to be away. He felt extremely guilty about it, but after what Dean had told him… Castiel let out a shaky breath.

“ _Papa_!”

Castiel flitted away in the span of a blink.

“John?!” Castiel shouted when he landed in the house.

John came running into the living room and grabbed Castiel’s wrist, dragging the older angel down the hall and into Castiel’s bedroom.

“Dad won’t wake up,” John cried. “We’ve been trying for an hour!”

Castiel felt himself go cold at that. He took in Sam’s pinched worried expression as the taller Winchester sat at the edge of the bed, one large hand resting on Dean’s arm. There was a bowl of water with a wash cloth at the bedside table, various noise makers, music.

“We tried everything,” Sam said quietly. “He just won’t wake up.”

“Oh dear Lord,” Castiel muttered, thinking back to Inias’ warning. But _no_ , Gabriel was back. Gabriel _told_ the other angels not to interfere. Castiel was there at the time, he _saw_ it.

“Do you think…” Sam began hesitantly, “do you think maybe we just don’t need to worry? Do you think maybe—” Sam cut himself off and looked at John’s small anxious face. The boy hadn’t left Dean’s side since he was alerted to Sam’s worry.

“Johnny, take Mary and Jass to your room, yeah?” Sam said.

“No! I can’t—”

“Listen to your Uncle, John,” Castiel said firmly.

John whipped his little head around and glared. “You left!”

“John,” Castiel began.

“No! You left! You were gone and you didn’t talk to anyone and y—” John argued.

“John Tabris Winchester. Now is not the time. Take your brother and cousin and go to your room. Now.”

John glared once last time, narrowed green eyes flashing before he picked up Jasper, took Mary’s hand and stormed from the room.

Castiel sighed heavily and collapsed on the bed.

“Castiel, something’s up, isn’t it?” Sam asked. “I was thinking maybe this was just him turning back into _our_ Dean at first but he’s been under too long.”

Castiel looked over at Sam with sad eyes. “How long?”

“He was napping for a little over two hours and we were trying to wake him up for one. So, I don’t— I’m not sure.”

Castiel slumped over and rested his forehead in one hand, the other dangling uselessly between his legs.

Sam was shifting anxiously on the bed next to Dean, only seconds away from raiding their supplies for some dream root and seeing what was going on in Dean’s head himself. It was eerily reminiscent of that time Bobby was in a similar situation but at least then they managed to find the answers and snap their friend, mentor, and father-figure out of his magic-induced sleep.

Castiel was a full power angel, though, the blue-eyed being just had to have some answers. Though, Sam did learn years ago that the angel wasn’t omniscient. Sam loved him like his brother and thought he was a fantastic friend but Castiel, ten times more powerful than either of them though he may be, did not know everything.

“Any hints, Cas? Ideas?” Sam asked hopefully, regardless.

“Just one,” Castiel said quietly.

“Great, that’s great!” Sam enthused. Then he sobered, asked hesitantly, “Is it great?”

“Great in the understanding that it is a solution, yes. Not great in the understanding that it will be a rather complicated solution,” Castiel hedged.

“What do we have to do?”

“Nothing, you don’t need to do anything. I do. Then I need a way to get Dean back home, and _quickly_. I’ve risked him too much as it is. I thought he would be fine, then I lost myself and I made a rash decision and now I have to confront my sisters. I was hoping this would all be avoided. I really was very hopeful,” Castiel looked at Sam imploringly, blue eyes wide and liquid. Sam didn’t know what to say. It had never been his position to comfort angels before. That was hands-down Dean’s area.

“Confront?” Sam asked worriedly, latching on to that part of Castiel’s speech. “You don’t mean…”

“If it comes to that. So many lost already,” Castiel was pushing himself to his feet, he already looked exhausted. If he had been human Sam would have said it looked like Castiel hadn’t slept in days, but angels didn’t need to sleep. What Sam was seeing in his brother-in-law was all internal.

Sam sighed. “Why do you always pretend you’re all right until it’s too late, Cas?”

“You two don’t need to worry about me,” Castiel smiled sadly. “You have more than enough of that for each other and the children. I’m not human.”

“You’re family,” Sam said, honest and straightforward. “I don’t care if you an amoeba. If you’re Cas, you’re Cas and _you’re_ family. Hell man, we’ve been in a ragtag little group for how many years now? Let us help you once in a while. You’ve the weight of Heaven and Earth on your shoulders. A job like that usually calls for a friendly ear. I get it if you don’t want to worry Dean. He does enough worrying for you with you saying something to him or not, but you got me too, Cas. You should have said this whole Dean body-swap fiasco was affecting you more than you were letting on. I can see it now. You were trying to be cool about it, for his sake but you’re just as freaked out as the rest of us. Regardless of what your Dad says, right?”

“What if we can’t get him back?” Castiel asked, voice small. “What do I do then?”

Sam bit his lip and looked away. He wasn’t about to promise anything he didn’t know the result of but he understood Castiel’s fears better than anyone. Dean was important to them both, the most important person in their lives before they had their children.

“We’ll do our best,” Sam said instead.

“Yes, of course. That’s all we can do. Sam, I don’t say this enough but I want you to know you’re a good friend,” Castiel said. “A good _brother_.”

Sam grinned, then clapped his hands. “Right! What’s the first step?”

“Perhaps I could reach Dean from within and I won’t have to do what I fear will be the only solution.”

“Go for it. Do you need me to go, or…?”

“No, you staying shouldn’t affect anything.” Castiel reached out with both hands and breathed slowly, it was an unnecessary gesture but oddly comforting – breathing. He placed his middle and index fingers against Dean’s temples and closed his eyes, concentrating. He reached out, slowly pushing past Dean’s barriers, making the familiar slip into Dean’s mind.

Just as Castiel was about to cross the boundary, he recoiled with a hiss. Something akin to an electric charge had jolted him away. He saw Dean’s features tighten fractionally, before easing again into the deathly stillness.

“Shit,” Sam muttered.

That summed it up nicely. Castiel sighed.

xx

Dean stumbled and glared at the inverted dome above his head. What the hell? He groped around beside him, about to grab Castiel again but stilled. He wasn’t standing any longer, the dome above his head was not open to his sight and there was no Cas.

“Dude, seriously, you’re switching to decaf,” Sam remarked, his tone amused.

Dean looked wildly around the interior of the Impala. “Shit, where’s Cas?”

Sam furrowed his brow in confusion. “Cas? Wait… Do you mean Castiel? That angel you were talking about? Since when are you and he so familiar, huh? Hasn’t he only showed up… what, twice now? Didn’t even help us with the Witnesses,” Sam grumbled.

“Witnesses? Seals?” Dean asked hurriedly.

“Yeah,” Sam said slowly. “That’s why we’re driving half-way across the country, Man. Bobby—”

“Bobby?” Dean squeaked.

Sam rolled his eyes. “Maybe I should drive. Whatever, look Bobby thinks it’s probably nothing. But with all the concern about the seals he doesn’t think checking out the Coven’s gathering will hurt anything. It’s probably just a group of Wiccas communing with nature or something, harmless, but just in case…” Sam allowed the sentence to trail off and finished with a shrug. He turned back to his notes.

“What the fuck?” Dean muttered.

“You okay, Dean?” Sam asked.

This was bullshit, Dean was done with this fucked-up mind-trip. Actually, he was beyond done. If Crazy-Dream-Cas was telling the truth then the angels were behind it. Dean thought his days with having angels play with his life were way behind him, but apparently not. Now he was thrust… what, four years in the past? Or would it be seventeen? Or was he still dreaming? He peered out through the windshield and saw the strange sky above him. If this was real, it wouldn’t feel so floaty, Dean was sure. The best way to knock yourself out of a dream was to die. But how…?

Dean groaned. “You’re in a car, Dean. Smarten-up for Christ’s sake,” he muttered to himself.

“Dean?” Sam asked.

“Hang on, Sammy. I’m getting out of here,” Dean replied.

“Out of… Dean what are you talking about. Bobby wants us to check out the Coven.”

“That never happened,” Dean shot back. “Whoever is fucking around in my head just knows how much I hate witches.”

The road was empty and dark around them, fenced in farmland stretched either side for miles down the tarmac. Crashing into fencing would be a bitch, but it wouldn’t do the kind of damage Dean wanted or needed. Maybe if he… Trees. Dean thought of trees, great green fur trees and massive redwoods. Either one would do the trick. Something solid and hard that wouldn’t take the hit but deliver one. The world began to shimmer around him and the fencing remained but also an oak tree, large and gnarled began to manifest a few metres out in a nearby field.

“Awesome,” Dean grinned to himself. He smashed his foot on the pedal, the engine gave a jolt before roaring to life. Dean didn’t release his foot from the gas and turned the wheel, aiming directly for the large oak, through fencing and all. Sam, oddly enough, stayed quiet and focused on his notes in the passenger seat. Not panicking in the slightest.

“Definitely a dream then,” Dean murmured. Just as he was about the strike the fence, the road snaked beneath the Impala’s wheels and curved the fence back to the side of the road.

“The fuck?” Dean gaped. He tried it again and again, but each time the road curved and snaked around, firmly keeping the Impala on the highway. Sam still sat there completely oblivious.

Dean, without thinking, stole a glance in the rear-view mirror, seeking out Castiel to see what the angel thought of this latest development, but the back seat was empty. Dean had grown so accustomed to Castiel just being over his shoulder that the absence of the being set a cold weight in Dean’s stomach.

Dean slammed on the breaks, the Impala fishtailing at the abrupt move. Dean let his head drop to the steering wheel and groaned.

“Are we there?” Sam asked curiously, looking around.

“We’re nowhere, Sam,” Dean replied. The tree had shimmered out of existence again and all that remained once more was the weathered, rail fencing and farmers’ fields.

“Maybe if you try again?” Sam asked.

Dean snapped his head up. “Huh?”

Sam looked furtively around. “I can’t promise anything, but you may get closer. Hurry, before—” Sam was cut off abruptly as the cabin of the car was filled with blinding light. Dean turned slow motion towards the light and heard the all-too-familiar sound of a mac truck’s horn slicing through the night.

It wasn’t the first time Dean was hit by a tracker trailer, but it certainly wasn’t any more enjoyable. Dream or not.

xx

Dean jolted in his place on the bed. Sam and Castiel locked large, wild eyes. Dean began to thrash, almost as if he was seizing and Sam fought against the urge to hold Dean still.

“He’s getting closer,” Castiel whispered, poorly disguised terror in his voice. “I need to act. _Now_. He’s too close.”

“Too close? To close to what?” Sam asked frantically.

“Being trapped forever,” Castiel replied grimly. “I need to go. But John… I need to go. I should tell him first but Dean’s so…”

“You can’t just leave John again,” Sam said. “Tell him. I’ll stay with Dean. If it happens again before you leave, I’ll tell you. Dean wouldn’t want you to leave without telling John goodbye.”

Castiel nodded stiffly and pushed himself up off the bed. He spared another concerned glance over his shoulder before heading down the hallway to John’s room. The door was closed; when Castiel knocked he received no response.

“John,” Castiel called through the wood.

“Go ‘way!”

Castiel closed his eyes, resting his forehead on the cool panel of wood, then pushed the door open. The only bedroom in the house that had a lock was Dean and Castiel’s. John threw a stuffed dog at Castiel the minute the door was opened wide enough for John to see him. Castiel caught it easily and held it in both hands. He stared down at the stuffed dog’s shiny brown plastic eyes and sat on the foot of John’s bed.

John turned back to Jasper without acknowledging his father further and continued to read. Mary looked wide-eyed between her uncle and cousin.

“Go see Daddy, Mary. It’s okay,” Castiel said softly. The little girl didn’t wait to be told a second time, she scrambled to her feet and scampered down the hallway.

“John, I really don’t have time to fight with you and I’m sorry. I know you’ve been feeling neglected lately and that’s my fault entirely. Your father, though, is very sick and I just wanted to tell you that I have to go away again to make him better.”

John kept on reading as if Castiel hadn’t even spoken.

Castiel sighed. “I’m sorry, John. Truly. I promise I’ll make it up to you and your brother.”

Castiel waited another beat before getting up and setting the stuffed dog gently aside. He walked over and ruffled John’s hair, pressing a kiss to the crown of his head before leaning over and kissing Jasper as well.

“I love you both. I will return and you’ll have your father back soon. I promise.”

Castiel returned to his bedroom only long enough to tell Sam that he was going. He let out another long breath and closed his eyes before taking wing and heading to Heaven.

He landed silently, to an equally and eerily silent Heaven. Castiel shivered, the air felt cold though he should not be able to feel the air at all. It was also strange that there was no one else around. The space was usually buzzing with activity but it seemed as if everyone was… Hiding.

“Gabriel?”

“Hey Cassy.”

Castiel spun. Gabriel was behind him looking tired. “I’m sorry,” the older angel said.

“Gabriel, what…?” Castiel let the sentence hang.

“Gotta love Civil War, Baby Bro,” Gabriel remarked with a sad, sardonic grin.

“No…” Castiel shook his head.

“Sort of,” Gabriel conceded. “I just… They aren’t listening. Not right now. They’re scared. I think they suspect something might happen and, well… They kind of just made themselves scarce. No one wants to take a side, not yet. I think they’re hedging their bets. Inias has been trying to help me to persuade them but…”

“Them?” Castiel asked.

“Hester. And to a lesser extent, Rachel. I told them exactly what you said I had to, Castiel, but Hester feels how out of sync that Dean is. I’ve held her back for as long as I could but Rachel and her are both pushing me out. I can’t kill them. I refuse, but that’s…”

“The only way, or they kill Dean?”

Gabriel closed his eyes and nodded slowly.

“I thought we were done with this. All of it. What we worked so hard for,” Castiel said bitterly. “I thought angels were done dying.”

“I know. We need to hurry, Cas, otherwise…” Gabriel trailed off.

Castiel nodded stiffly. “Very well. I… I will confront them. Gabriel?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I ask a favour?”

“I’m _not_ going to fight them for you, Castiel. I will not kill my sisters,” Gabriel said sternly, eyes flashing.

“No! No, I know Gabriel. I need you to do something else. I _will_ confront them, but alone. I just… I need you to do something for me while I’m there. Find a way to get Dean and Castiel out?”

“But…”

“We can work out how to get Dean home later, but Purgatory… I don’t have the knowledge, you might be able to find a way.”

Gabriel looked critically at Castiel, measuring the younger angel before him. “There’s more to this.”

“Yes,” Castiel nodded, meeting his brother’s gaze. “If I don’t make it out. If I get killed, I need you to let Dean know and I need you to tell him how to get home. Please?”

Gabriel looked like he was about to object, then thought better of it. Instead he nodded stiffly again and set his jaw.

“Remember, Castiel, you’re an archangel,” Gabriel said and vanished.

xx

Dean woke up into a sterile-feeling environment. The walls weren’t white like he half expected, instead they were a gentle green and what little he could see of the floor was surprisingly carpeted. It looked more like a bedroom but still _felt_ like a hospital.

Why on earth was he in a hospital in his dream? Unless it wasn’t a dream and something had happened out in the real world. Or maybe… Maybe it was a different room because he was _back home_. His place, his timeline and maybe he was in bad shape and they put him in a hospital for a few days. Sam was enough of a sentimental fool to splurge on a fancier room even if it meant they would have to find some new insurance soon. That was probably it, there was no telling how long Dean had been gone in his world. He was probably back and Sam wanted the best of care for Dean while he recovered.

Dean struggled to sit up, surprised at the strain it took to do so. It also felt like a lead weight was crushing his chest. He coughed, great wracking coughs before flopping back down and groaning. What the hell?

“Mister Winchester,” a young nurse had come into the room, perhaps signalled by something. She had a fondly aggrieved smile on her face. “You know, that call button is there for a reason, Mister Winchester. Here, let me help you.”

Dean flashed her a flirtatious smile. “At least I have a hot nurse this time, last place I was in like this I wasn’t so lucky.”

She rolled her eyes but smiled. “You’re so cute, Mister Winchester. I bet you say that to all the girls.”

Cute? All right, not usually the response he got to something like that, but he’d take it. She was close enough that he could feel her heat as she leaned in and adjusted first his pillows and then the bed. It lurched into life with an automatic switch and even the gentle slide upward had him coughing again.

“Shh, just breathe through it, Mister Winchester, I know, I know,” she hushed. No assurances that he’d be better soon, just a few more days. Also a little weird.

“Where’s Sam?” Dean finally wheezed out.

“Shh, Mister Winchcester,” she hushed again, gently rubbing his arm. Dean was getting a very bad feeling. He shook her off and glared; no matter how pretty she was she was going to damn well tell him where Sam was.

She squeaked, a little startled, then relaxed. “Please Mister Winchester, you’ll aggravate your cough again.”

“Look lady, I don’t give a fuck, just tell me where the hell my brother is!” Dean demanded.

“Mister Winchester… Dean… You know where your brother is,” she was still speaking gently but her eyes were a little wider, surprised or scared, he wasn’t sure.

“No I don’t!” Dean shouted. “I wouldn’t ask if I _knew_ , you dumb bitch!”

She gasped, stumbled away, and fled from the room.

“Hey!” Dean shouted. He began to struggle in the too-soft bed, machines picking up speed and volume all around him, his IV needle pulling painfully at the back of his hand. He wrenched it out and struggled with increased vigour. “Hey!” Another cough stole his breath halfway through but he fought on. “Hey!”

The nurse came back then, her gentle smile exchanged for a stern expression as she directed the two large orderlies at her side. The men came over and grabbed Dean. Dean fought against them, feeling massively weak in their surprisingly strong grips.

“Hold him,” the nurse said firmly. She approached Dean then, a syringe in one hand a bottle in the other. She pulled the plastic cap off the needle and drew a portion of the clear liquid into the vial. Dean struggled even more fiercely but it was doing nothing to break the hold the men had on his arms. A sharp jab in his arm and then the world began to swim as he slumped between the two muscle-heads.

“Tracy, what’s going on?” A new voice reached Dean’s ears, but all he saw was a blur of white.

The nurse, Tracy, answered back. Dean only managed to catch one word: “Dementia.”

Then the room went black.

xx

Sam held the thrashing Dean firm. He had sent John out ages ago and Mary and Jasper had been put to bed. Sam hated the minutes away from his brother it took to do that, but he couldn’t forget the children in his worry. He wouldn’t. Dean had been still then, silent. Sam was lucky he got back before the spasms struck.

Dean had thrashed violently for several minutes, reacting to whatever was taunting him in his subconscious. Sam had to hold his brother still to prevent Dean from bashing his head on the headboard or side tables. It was terrifying and Sam was very, very glad John hadn’t been in the room to see it.

Dean was still again now though – deathly still. Sam swallowed.

“Hurry up, Cas.”

xx

Castiel was uncertain if his presence had remained undetected as he approached Hester, Rachel and Inias in the Hall of Mirrors. Various images were on display in the hundreds of reflective glasses spaced what appeared to be haphazardly around the room. The centre mirror was currently in use, the focus on the man currently inhabiting it fulltime. Hester stood before the mirror, her hand on the glass. She didn’t turn when Castiel approached.

Inias, however, did turn. So much for remaining undetected. The smaller angel rushed to Castiel’s side and clung to the representation of Castiel’s arm.

“I don’t know what to do. I’m so sorry, Castiel. I tried,” Inias whispered. “She’s so close, though. Please, look. Talk to her. I don’t know what to do.”

“Shh, Inias. It’s alright. You did your best. Thank you,” Castiel said gently, cupping a hand over his brother’s before gently prying the younger man away from him.

“He’ll be stuck soon, Castiel. You’re too late. It won’t be much longer now,” Hester said coolly. “Trust me though, Brother. You will see that this has been for the best. The greater good.”

Castiel chanced a glance at the mirror and his eyes stung with tears.

xx

“Mister Winchester? Back with us, I see. Good… Good,” it was the male voice from earlier again. Dean found it grating. He opened his eyes to see that the grating voice belonged to a doctor.

“Where’s Sam?” Dean rasped.

“Now Dean—”

“Dammit, where’s Sam?” The fight had gone out of Dean but he wasn’t about to give up asking. “What about Cas… Castiel. He’s here, right? The boys? My boys. John and Jasper, am I in that world?”

The doctor furrowed his brow, checked the chart in front of him and said, “That world? John and Jasper? I’m sorry, Dean, I don’t quite understand. Could you tell me—”

“My sons!” Dean bit out, managing to raise his voice. Then he stilled, surprised at himself. His boys. That was the first time he’d acknowledged it like that out loud.

“Dean…” the doctor hesitated. “You’ve never had children.”

“No, not yet, but _will_ ,” Dean insisted.

Now the doctor looked sad. “Dean… Dean, I need to ask you a question and it’s going to sou—”

“How long have I been here? In this place?” Dean interrupted. It couldn’t have been long.

“Six months, Dean.”

Dean’s eyes widened. “S… six? But… No, I…”

“Dean, what year is this?” the doctor asked.

Dean rolled his eyes. It hurt. He winced. “Two-thousand-twelve.”

The doctor shook his head gently. “No, Dean. I’m sorry. I think you’re a little confused, but that’s okay, it is to be expected, considering… The year is Twenty-fifty-five, Dean.”

Dean blinked.

“Your brother died forty-two years ago in a hunting accident. Remember, Dean? That’s why Sam isn’t here. You’re at the Meadow Valley Convalescent Home. You were brought in six months ago after a lengthy stay at the hospital. You have cancer, Dean. Do you remember that?”

“What?” Dean gasped.

“It’s gone too far to treat, Dean, they discovered it in your—”

“No! Where’s Cas?” Dean demanded.

“Dean, I don’t know who Cas is. Is he another brother?”

“He’s an angel, you dick!” Dean exclaimed, then coughed again.

“All right, Dean,” the doctor hushed. He looked across Dean’s bed with sad eyes.

Dean turned, hoping to find John or Jasper standing there, hoping to see Sam, Cas, or _someone_ but all he saw was the nurse, Tracy.

“This isn’t happening,” Dean muttered. “Neither of you are _real_. I’m dreaming, dammit. You hear me? I know I’m dreaming so you can knock it off!” Dean shouted at the ceiling.

“All right, I’m just going to give you something to help you sleep, Dean,” the doctor soothed. “It’ll be all right.”

Dean tried to fight, but he didn’t have the strength. The drug injected into his reattached IV worked quickly.

“…May not make it through the night,” Dean heard murmured. “Anyone to inform?’

“No, Doctor. He has no one,” Tracy whispered.

“Have Val make arrangements then,” the doctor sighed.

Dean passed out. _He has no one. He’s alone. Alone. No one._

xx

“Dean?” Sam exclaimed. “No, no, no, no.” The movement of Dean’s chest had begun to slow. The gentle up and down rhythm that Sam had been carefully monitoring for the last several hours was gradually stopping. Sam had barely left his brother’s bedside and in that time Dean had grown more and more still except for a wild burst a few minutes prior.

Sam scrambled to check Dean’s pulse; he first tried in his wrist, then his neck, then placed an ear tight against Dean’s chest. His heartbeat was light and thready.

No, no, no.

“Dean! Dean! Snap out of it! Wake up, god dammit!” Sam shouted. “Cas!”

xx

Castiel flicked he gaze down to Earth then back to Hester who was smiling serenely into the mirror.

“At first I just wanted him to be trapped,” Hester explained. “I didn’t want anything to happen to him, Castiel. I do recognize you have a strong attachment. I didn’t realize, though… I didn’t understand then that this attachment of yours could endanger us.

“I tried, Brother. I’m sorry. But he has been here too long, this has gone on too long and then you were not there to monitor him. It was dangerous. I couldn’t stand by. I should have realized,” Hester turned then, finally, her cold smile masked with deceptively gentle eyes, “the first time you laid a hand on him in Hell, you were lost. He corrupts. Now this abomination tramples through our doors?

“The one from our world was bad enough, but I couldn’t allow this one’s infection to seep through. I will not risk the world we fought so hard to save. So he must die, Castiel. Hopefully, with luck, yours will be returned to you. However, if not,” Hester sighed, “you have my condolences.”

At that, the cool indifference, Hester’s nonchalant tone, Castiel snapped. He had been holding himself taut, barely reigning himself back as he tried to think, but was too close now. Dean was going to die and there was only one way for Castiel to stop it.

His archangel blade established itself in his hand, the new weight of it still unfamiliar but it was comforting all the same. Yes, there had been much death among his brethren, but Castiel could not forgive hurting Dean, no matter the manifestation of him. Dean was still Dean. The Dean trapped, locked in his own mind, would develop into his Dean eventually, despite the past; Castiel was now certain of that. Their bond was too strong for the Dean lying near-death in their home to be anything but Castiel’s.

“No!” Rachel cried, jumping in front of Hester. “Castiel! Please. How many of us must die?”

Castiel just barely managed to pull himself to a stop before he struck. “My quarrel is not with you, Rachel. You may be forgiven if you stand aside.”

“Rachel, think of our world. Think of the rift this could cause, the lives that could be hanging in the balance,” Hester hissed from behind, her hand firm on the mirror. It was _moments_ away now.

“Rachel, stand aside,” Castiel demanded again. “Do not make me destroy you, too. Please, Sister.”

“Hush, Rachel, steady,” Hester countered. “He will not strike you. Stand firm. It’s only _seconds_ before our world is purged.”

Rachel squared her shoulders. Castiel felt a deep regret, weighty and cold in his gut as he drew back his hand. Rachel’s own blade appeared at the ready, but there was no way she was strong enough to fight him off.

“I’m so sor—” Just as Castiel raised his blade, a blur moved across his striking line and in a jumble of angel-grace, was suddenly at his right. The streak hadn’t been quick enough, though. Castiel gaped.

Inias sat panting heavily, a hand pressed to his chest, though the glow came from a long gash at his back.

“No!” Castiel cried out.

“Castiel! Strike! Save the boy,” Inias whimpered.

“Look out!” Rachel screamed.

At first, Castiel though the warning was for Hester but at the last second he caught a flash of silver. Dread filled Castiel as he realized Hester, at last, had moved away from the mirror and was about to strike. Castiel was seconds away from being slaughtered but Rachel’s warning served him just in time.

He evaded quickly, twisted around Hester’s sword, the tip delivering a glancing blow to Castiel’s side. He brought his arm up and around and in one fierce thrust, drove the blade through the rear of Hester’s neck. Her eyes flashed brilliant, blinding and white, and then she was nothing in the nowhere space of Heaven, not even the burn of ashen wings to show her presence.

Castiel’s cheeks were wet. Hester removing her hand could only mean one thing. He stumbled over to Inias, hand stretched out to heal him. It was too late for Dean but his brother still had time.

Just as he was about to lay his hand on the smaller angel who was cradled gently against Rachel, Inias reached out and shoved. Shocked, Castiel fell away.

“Go! Go through!” Inias shouted. “Catch him before the soul abandons the body. You’ll catch it from within. Go!”

“I’ll care for him, Castiel, now go,” Rachel said just as urgently. “You have seconds. _Seconds_.”

xx

“No! Fuck you, Dean! Don’t you damn well die on me, you are not fucking allowed,” Sam was kneeling astride Dean’s chest; the green-eyed man’s heart had stopped a fraction of a second earlier. Sam was performing compressions but Dean wasn’t responding. Soon, his brother’s ribs would break and by then, it might be too late.

“Castiel!” Sam shouted, vision swimming; tears ran hot and unchecked down his cheeks. “Dean! Wake the fuck up!”

John was crying silently in the corner. Sam’s shouts having pulled him from bed. He hugged himself tightly, watching as Sam pressed and pressed against Dean’s chest.

“No, Daddy. Please, Papa…”

xx

The glass shards tumbled around Castiel as he somersaulted through the mirror, liquid only on the side of Heaven. Dean’s dream visions of the attractive young doctor and beautiful nurse shimmered out of existence as Castiel lunged past them and grasped the insubstantial glowing mist hovering between the two.

Castiel tackled Dean’s soul back to the bed, pressing with all his strength behind the mass. Bracing the outside with grace, adding himself to it to keep it bonded.

The soul writhed, shivered under his touch.

“No, Dean, you will not die today. I put you back together once, I _will_ do it again. Now please, Love, go back. I very much want to meet you again.”

The soul seemed to keen and purr, shudder then fall limp. It no longer fought against Castiel and Castiel smiled, closed his eyes and gathered it close. The archangel reached out a hand and grasped Dean’s shoulder tightly, pushing more of his own being into Dean’s soul: bonding further. Dean’s soul glowed bright under Castiel’s hand.

xx

“Uncle Sam!” John shouted suddenly, springing to his feet. He launched himself across the room and grasped Sam tight around the waist, pushing him off the bed and closing his eyes tight.

Concentrating, John pushed Sam _through_ the wall. The man cried out, but he was too shocked to fight. Straining John focused and cushioned them both, bringing them to an abrupt halt with his wings before they smashed into the grass below.

“Shut your eyes!”

John curled against the ground, bracing himself over Sam’s head and Sam slammed his eyes shut tight just in time. His lids flared orange red, the ground shook and the glow subsided.

The car alarms all along the street blared. Dogs barked and howled as lights flicked on one-by-one down the street. Sam gaped, John stared. The alarms and dogs halted abruptly, lights slowly began to flick back off. In unison, Sam and John jumped to their feet then ran back into the house.

xx

Dean came awake with a gasp, quickly followed by a painful cough. He sagged over himself, fearing for a brief second that he was back in the dream-induced hell where he was all alone. However, it wasn’t the soreness of illness or overused muscles, it was more a stiff soreness of someone giving him a good beating but him still walking away victorious.

“Jesus Christ,” Dean panted out. “Who the hell did a Highland jig on my chest? Fuck.”

“Dean!” Sam cried out, barrelling into the room.

Dean looked over and squinted up at his brother before quirking a grin. “Hiya, Sammy.”

“Daddy, Daddy!” A tiny, slender body was suddenly hurled at Dean’s chest, easing another cough out of him, but also a laugh. Choosing to ignore for the time being that this little bundle wasn’t his quite yet, Dean wrapped his arms tight around John and buried his face in soft curls.

“Hey Johnny, missed you,” Dean murmured.

“Dean… Dean are you…” Castiel’s voice was hollow and hesitant, he was standing straight, stiff and wide-eyed at the side of the bed, a very faint tremor in his tightly clasped hands.

“Not yet,” Dean smiled sadly.

“God, I don’t even care,” Castiel slumped down on the bed and pulled Dean tight against his chest. “Don’t you ever almost fucking die on me again. I can only shove that moronic transient soul of yours back in so many times!” Castiel had pulled back and shook Dean once before hugging him again.

“Okay, guys, okay,” Dean wheezed. “You’re kind of crushing me.”

“Papa!” John gasped, slightly delayed. “You _swore_.”

“Yes, I did,” Castiel replied. “Sometimes grown-ups just have to swear, John.”

That startled another laugh out of Dean. He looked over to share the joke with Sam but saw his brother pale and liquid-eyed.

“Sammy,” Dean said softly.

“Dean, Dean you were…” Sam stuttered. “Dean I had to… Your heart _stopped_.”

“Sammy,” again, just as gentle. “I’m okay.”

Dean was once again pulled into a bone-crushing hug. Castiel and John just barely clear of Sam’s massive arm radius.

Then Dean heard it. He stilled and looked up. Sam, John, Cas and the room were all gone in an instant. Instead, Dean looked out into a lowly lit sitting room or study, a fire crackling merrily in the fireplace. He was no longer sitting on a bed but a plush leather chair.

Dean blinked. Then he _knew_. “God, I presume?”

“Hiya, Dean, long time,” Chuck offered a shaky smile. “How you been?”


	6. Part Five: “…nothing ever really ends…”

**Part Five: “…nothing ever really ends…”**

“Chuck? _Chuck_?! You’re God? Jesus Christ…” Dean muttered, then winced. “Oops.”

“I’ll let it slide this time, Dean,” Chuck smiled kindly. “After all, I know you. But you see, now I have a question for you. It’s almost time to leave, and you will be going back to Purgatory, I can’t change that, but I need to make sure, before you go… I need to make sure you learned.”

“Of course,” Dean said bitterly. “Always a fucking lesson.”

“Of course,” Chuck said lightly.

Dean closed his eyes and sighed. “All right, lay it on me.”

Chuck got up and walked over to a tea caddy sitting against the wall by the crackling fireplace. He was singing to himself as he poured dark liquid into cups, added cream and sugar. Dean listened and was shocked to realize he knew the song.

“And all these words that you meant to say/Held in silence day after day/Words of kindness that our poor hearts crave/Please don’t keep them hidden away. ”

“It was you?” Dean asked. “Did you put that in my head?”

Chuck stilled. “Put what?” He looked as if he was thinking back over the last few minutes before he shook his head, then frowned and said, “No. That was Castiel.”

“That was in my _head_ ,” Dean retorted.

Chuck turned and smiled mysteriously. “It was still Castiel.” He carried the cups over towards Dean. They were simple, black porcelain mugs. Chuck handed one to Dean then resumed his seat. Then Chuck just stared across the space between them. Dean took a hesitant sip of his drink, then a more enthusiastic one. That was damn good coffee… Heavenly coffee? Dean shook his head, mentally chastising himself for his wandering thoughts. He was here for a reason. He had to focus. He took another sip. It was still _really_ good coffee.

“You know what you have to look forward to now, right?” Chuck finally said, startling Dean.

Dean looked up.

Chuck sipped his coffee and looked at Dean with level blue eyes. It was uncanny how much Chuck Shurley resembled Jimmy Novak. Dean knew, looking at them now and knowing their connection, that if they told a stranger on the street that Chuck and Cas were related, they would believe it in a heartbeat. Even with the obvious height difference.

“Did you do that on purpose?” Dean asked suddenly, “Find a vessel that looked like Cas’?”

The writer chuckled, “I _am_ Chuck, Dean. I always have been. I was… sleeping for a while. I didn’t awaken until, well, until things got out of hand.”

It was said with some regret and Dean wanted desperately to be as pissed at the former prophet turned _freaking God_ as Castiel apparently was, but it was _Chuck_. He had helped them out more than once. Despite Castiel’s justified anger, Chuck had intervened when he could. Chuck wasn’t Dean’s dad though, Chuck was Castiel’s. The father who had abandoned his children without even knowing half of them.

“Out of hand? That’s how we’re describing it now?” Dean asked sardonically, then snapped his mouth shut just as suddenly, his eyes widening. “Sorry.”

“Reverence from a Winchester?” Chuck laughed lowly. “I’m shocked.” He quirked a grin at Dean and shrugged it off. “You didn’t answer my question you know.”

“I know,” Dean replied quietly. “I’m not sure. I don’t even know how to get out.”

“Castiel is working on that. He’ll have your answer tonight. Though it will take some finagling to make it happen, but hey, I can swing it,” Chuck said lightly. “How are my grandsons? Why didn’t you bring them?”

“I… What? Grandsons? You aren’t saying that they…”

“Come over here and clean out my supplies of ice cream? Hog my television and raid my kitchen? Sure do. You drop them off sometimes. I, ah… babysat John when he was a just a little guy, that’s actually how you guys found me. Castiel and Sam were busy and I think you were going stir crazy.

“John was only three at the time so you couldn’t take him with you and you couldn’t leave him alone and, well, you called me. Thinking I was still just Chuck. I didn’t realize… I didn’t _think_ John would be able to tell who I was. He did. I didn’t see or hear from any of you for a few years after that. Castiel was… Well, he wasn’t very happy.”

“He’s still not very happy,” Dean said quietly.

“Not with me, no. He lets me see the boys, though,” Chuck shrugged. “He’s grateful for them, if nothing else and I can’t say I blame him.”

“Yeah, well, can’t say I blame him either.”

They continued to drink their coffee in silence; Chuck watched him with an eerily focused gaze and Dean fell deep into thought.

“You were sent here so you could realize that it wasn’t the end, Dean. It wasn’t _me_ who sent you, but the me from your timeline. What happened in your world caused something like a… a pocket? I guess, you could say. We experienced some of it here, a few of the events that happened with Crowley, but not like you did.”

“I know, Cas told me,” Dean replied.

“Some wires seemed to get crossed in your timeline or your free will was just too strong and it changed things. It happened in a way I never could have predicted and that’s saying something.”

“I still don’t know how that’s even possible,” Dean said exasperatedly. “Everything is fucked up beyond reckoning and I just don’t get it! Why does this shit have to happen to me? What did we do to get punished?”

Chuck’s eyes went sad, he put his coffee mug aside and leaned forward so his elbows rested on his knees. “You aren’t being punished, Dean. Despite what people think, I can’t control every aspect of life. That would defeat the purpose of it, don’t you think? If I were to leave myself the ability to manipulate you down to the last action then you would be nothing but puppets and free will would be an illusion. Castiel told me something once and, well… It probably made me sadder than anything I can ever remember.”

“Told you?” Dean asked, confused. “I thought he didn’t…”

“He doesn’t anymore,” Chuck shook his head. “Just before things got back on track, in our world, Castiel spoke with me. Looking for guidance, looking in the wrong place, but looking anyway.”

“Wrong place?”

“He shouldn’t have been talking to me,” Chuck whispered. “I’m not the one who saves him over and over again.”

“God, it’s not Lucifer is it?” Dean asked stricken.

Chuck smiled sadly, “No Dean, it isn’t. I may give the pieces the final nudge, but it’s not me, not really.”

“Then who?”

Chuck leaned forward and touched a hand to Dean left shoulder. Dean flinched back and looked at _God’s_ hand on his arm. On his arm, right over a once angry red mark that had faded now to a slightly lighter patch of skin on his upper arm, the shape only discernible if you stared – Castiel’s hand print scar.

“That’s impossible,” Dean scoffed, pulling away from the light pressure of Chuck’s hand.

Chuck settled back in his seat. “A mark like that means something was left behind. Something that shouldn’t have been, but was. When Castiel pulled you out, you traded pieces of yourselves. You carry each other wherever you go. Think about it, you know it’s true.”

Dean didn’t even have to think that hard.

“Your goal is this life you lived for the past week, Dean. You already have the tools you need. When you go back, _bring_ him back. You can, but only if you want it. Really, really want to. You have to let go of everything dark between you before you can stitch the tear back together. If you want those boys, this life, Sam to be healthy, happy and have his little girl, then you have to _make it happen_.”

“Bobby?” Dean asked desperately. “That shouldn’t have happened. Bobby was supposed to live a long, long time, right? The Leviathans weren’t supposed to get out and if they hadn’t Bobby wouldn’t have died.”

Chuck sighed, his eyes were sad again when he looked up. “I’ll talk to an old friend, Dean, but I’m afraid I owe him one too many favours as it is. It might not work. Though everything else? That you can have, I guarantee it, all you have to do is try. Castiel has returned to you three times already and this fourth time you just need to push a few more pieces into place. All men make mistakes, Dean.”

“Even I in this,” Dean quirked an ironic grin.

“Dean, it’s easier to forgive our enemies than our friends, but we can only forgive as much as we love. If you want that love, if you want this future, you need to wipe the slate clean. Castiel’s been punishing himself quite enough without your help, don’t you think?”

" _I can't help. You understand, I can't. I destroyed everything, and I will destroy everything again. Can we please just leave it at that?_ "

Dean swallowed. “Yeah.”

“So do you know what to do?”

Dean nodded firmly, “Get me back.”

“Tomorrow. You have one more night here, make the most of it.”

The doorbell rang.

“There’s your ride,” Chuck grinned. “He won’t come in. It was nice talking to you again, Dean. I hope you and Castiel make it through. Good luck.”

Dean nodded and slowly put his cup on the coffee table. He stood, hesitated a moment, then began heading to the foyer. Before he reached it, he stopped and turned.

“What did Cas tell you that made you so upset?” Dean asked.

Chuck had that sad, ancient smile on his face again. “It was about freedom, free will,” Chuck answered, “‘Freedom is a length of rope… God wants you to hang yourselves with it.’”

Dean flinched. “When?” he rasped.

“Superman going to the Dark Side,” Chuck replied. “He was so, so miserable, Dean. So scared and alone.”

Dean closed his eyes and nodded once. _It’s so simple when you say it like that. Where were you when I needed to hear it?_ Maybe Dean wasn’t there after all. How could he not have seen it? Dean had a lot of making up to do. He just hoped that for his Cas, it wasn’t too late. Dean had been too late once, but he wouldn’t be again. That he swore right then. Hell he could swear to God – for real, if he so chose.

“I believe you,” Chuck said quietly. “He’s waiting.”

“Ah… thanks, I guess,” Dean said uncomfortably. The green-eyed man gave an awkward little wave and crossed the foyer.

Castiel was waiting on the other side of the door. When Dean swung it fully open, the angel took a step back and waited for Dean to exit.

“I won’t go in,” Castiel said.

“Yeah, I know,” Dean walked out and shut the door behind him. “Did you get it?”

“I… What?” Castiel asked, confused.

Dean shrugged. “Chuck… God… Ah, your Dad said you were working on my great escape. Did you manage?”

Castiel blinked. “Ah… Yes, Gabriel and I have determined a way to get you and your Castiel out of Purgatory… As for returning you to your timel—”

“Tomorrow,” Dean interrupted, he nodded behind him at the house. “It’s taken care of.”

Castiel waited a beat then said softly, “Oh. I didn’t think… I see. That’s good.”

“Home?” Dean asked with a smile.

“Yes,” Castiel held out his hand, which Dean took, then stepped further into the angel’s arms. If Castiel held him just a bit harder and maybe a tad longer than he had to, well, Dean felt no need to question it.

The hunter closed his eyes tight and shifted his hold to Castiel’s sweater, fists clenched in the soft material. He heard a crackle as the air broke around them, a great sweep of impossibly large wings and then with a sickening lurch he landed, hard, rocking uneasily into Castiel.

“Jesus Christ,” Dean muttered. “Angel Express is one thing, but Archangel Express? Shit man, it’s like getting hit by a bus every fucking time.”

“Ah… Dean,” Castiel coughed.

“Huh?” Dean pulled back. Castiel gestured with his head to the side, Dean turned and grimaced.

“Hey, Johnny! Just ignore everything I just said,” Dean laughed.

“Dude, not the first time I heard you swear,” John shrugged.

“Doesn’t mean he _should_ if you’re around,” Castiel said firmly.

“And normally, I’m sure I wouldn’t,” Dean retorted with a tight smile and a glare.

“You’d be surprised,” Castiel drawled.

“Okay, weird,” John remarked casually, then slid off the couch, closing his book. “I’m going to bed now. Just wanted to wait to say goodnight.”

Castiel crouched and John gave him a quick hug.

“Good night, my son,” Castiel said softly.

John turned and hugged Dean’s waist tight, squeezing with all of his youthful strength. Obviously, the boy was still a little more than shaken up over Dean’s near death experience and abrupt departure.

Dean squeezed back, holding John tight for a long moment until he felt the boy’s arms relax.

“Night, Monkey,” Dean ruffled the child’s hair before releasing him entirely.

John waved over his shoulder as he disappeared down the hall.

“So ah… when I disappeared… Did you guys…?” Dean began.

“We were informed,” Castiel replied. “Father told us as he was taking you. He said you two needed to talk and not to be concerned.”

“Yeah,” Dean answered distractedly.

Dean wandered around the living room, looking at pictures and books on the shelf. He felt Castiel’s eyes on him but didn’t turn or speak. Dean wanted a chance to remember this house, a chance to make it happen for himself if he and Cas ever got back – No, _when_ they got back.

He stopped at one of the bookcases bracketing the mantelpiece and noticed a framed photograph he must have overlooked before. It was beautiful.

It was dark, but Dean could make out the three figures in it clear enough. The paved path they were on was lined with white paper lanterns suspended on tall poles. In the background rose a fair ground, the Ferris wheel brightly lit and rising high above the rest of rides and booths. Behind the Ferris wheel Dean made out flashes of light: multi coloured fireworks, blue, red, white flashed in the sky, ghostly through the camera lens. In the middle of it all walked Castiel, Dean, and a younger John on Dean’s shoulders. Castiel was looking up at his son, a faint smile on his lips, John was slumped over Dean’s head, clearly asleep or halfway there.

“Fourth of July about – my goodness, seven years ago now. You and Sam insisted we go to the carnival the town was holding in celebration. I was uncertain of it. Back then I wasn’t too fond of crowds but you managed to talk me into it. You manage to talk me into a lot of things,” Castiel said fondly. He was standing right behind Dean, chin nearly resting on the green-eyed man’s shoulder. “Sam took it.”

“We look so happy,” Dean said softly, almost not able to believe it.

“Yes. We are, you know… happy. I’m not just making all this stuff up. Please don’t let the rockier parts you’ve heard about fool you. We may have fallen into our family accidently but it seems to suit us well enough. You mustn’t give up hope that you’ll get this one day, and soon perhaps.

“I think, I think a long time ago, even before you met me and before you knew about the horror of your past and your life, you gave up on feeling happy. Maybe you forgot how to be. Maybe that’s why you were sent here, so you could remember and so you’d know it’s okay to _be_ happy. Just because you feel joy, Dean, does not mean the world will suffer for it. We have our life here together, with Sam and our children, but you still do good work. You still help people. After everything, Dean, don’t you think you deserve to indulge your self-gratification? At least a little?”

Dean set the picture back on the shelf with reverence. He turned to Castiel, eyes swimming. “Do you think I deserve it? After everything I’ve done?”

“Dean, even after everything, you _still_ don’t think you deserve to be saved?” Castiel gave a wry smile and raised his brows.

Dean reached out suddenly and grabbed Castiel’s sweater, pulling the deceptively slight man hard against his chest and crushing their mouths together. Castiel made a small muffled sound of surprise against Dean’s lips but that lasted only a second until he was sinking against Dean’s solid, familiar chest and feeling Dean move against him. Castiel allowed it to continue for a few more seconds, having no desire to relinquish this just yet but eventually his logical brain took over and he pushed away, though not entirely. Castiel kept his hands firm against Dean’s chest, feeling the younger man’s heart beat double time against his palm.

“Dean, we don’t have to do this, not if it makes you—” He was cut off by another kiss, “—Oomf.”

“Shut up, Cas,” Dean murmured against the angel’s lips. “I got one night left here, let me have this because I may not get it for a while.”

“Dean,” Castiel muttered back.

“Please?”

“God Dean, yes, whatever you want,” Castiel conceded and it felt like relief. This time he pulled Dean against him and Dean went more than willingly.

The two stumbled through the living room, grazing the corner of the wall as they fumbled down the short hallway until Castiel’s back hit their closed bedroom door, Dean leaned over him and kissed every inch of available skin while he grappled for the doorknob.

“Jesus, fuck, why’d you close the damn door?” Dean panted out.

“Shut up,” Castiel retorted.

Dean had the sudden sense of free fall before his back hit the rumbled bed sheets. He blinked up at Castiel leaning over him and grinned.

“You’re badass, you know that?” Dean remarked.

“I’m aware.”

Dean grinned and quickly flipped them so he had the upper hand, Castiel didn’t even look surprised, rather he looked challenging. The angel’s blue eyes were sparking with barely masked humour as he waited to see what Dean would do next. Suddenly, and kind of ridiculously, Dean felt out of his depth.

For Castiel this was familiar territory, this was probably a basic Thursday night or whatever; for Dean, he hadn’t been really truly intimate with someone for a very, very long time. Dean pulled away.

Castiel reached up quickly and snagged Dean’s shirt, pulling him back down and kissing him languidly, easing Dean’s anxiety with each careful press of his lips. Dean relaxed again finally, resting almost his full weight on the body beneath him and let out a shaky breath once they parted in order for the human to breathe.

“Dean, don’t try to be him, just be you,” Castiel whispered in Dean’s ear. “I’ve only _ever_ been with you, Dean. It’s okay.”

Dean pulled back then suddenly, but this time out of shock. “Shit. No way, just me?”

Castiel gave Dean a flat look. “When exactly would I have had the time to ah… broaden my horizons?” The archangel quirked a brow.

“Oh Man, then I’m a fucking good teacher because a few days ago? Jesus. All right, now I think I’m _more intimidated_.”

Castiel rolled his eyes. “Shut up. Let me lead then.”

Dean grinned. “Well lead on.”

Castiel pulled Dean back down into another deep kiss and Dean just let himself feel. Castiel kissed deeply and almost aggressively without being unpleasant and Dean found himself moaning around the blue-eyed man’s slick, talented tongue and reciprocating with enthusiasm. It was so strange to be with someone who _knew_ you, it was more than Dean had ever had. Even with Cassie and Lisa they had still been learning one another, but ex-girlfriends were not what Dean wanted to think about right now and he turned his attention back to Castiel with laser focus.

The angel gradually built Dean’s confidence as he let out little pleased noises now and again, and Dean pulled back to explore, trying out some of his old tricks he learned with _his_ Castiel and was more than pleased when the angel arched off of the bed at a particularly accurate nip Dean landed.

“Just like riding a bike,” Dean murmured, pleased with himself.

“Classy,” Castiel drawled, before he flipped them unceremoniously and began kissing down Dean’s chest. The clothes had vanished at some point earlier and Dean had been too absorbed in Castiel’s mouth to realize. Score two for the angel.

When the blue-eyed being reached Dean’s reddened, straining erection, Dean visibly rose from the bed and groaned. It was unexpected and so _good_. Fuck, was it ever good, but Dean wanted more than that right now and as much as it was an internal battle to reason out his two wants, he conceded to the gentler one and tugged Cas back up.

“Dean?” Castiel asked, puzzled, looking a little uncertain of himself for the first time.

Dean was quick to reassure. “Shh, no I just…” Dean pulled Castiel back towards him and the angel settled easily on the hunter’s chest as they kissed again.

Castiel smiled knowingly and shifted his positions so he could work his hand between their bodies. Castiel positioned them just right so that when their heated dicks brushed together, nestled close in Castiel’s palm Dean’s eyes fluttered as he his moaned and reached for a kiss again.

It was slow, easy, comfortable and _perfect_ as they exchanged intimate kisses and soft moans. It was far gentler than Dean had allowed himself to be in a while and it was also exactly what he needed. However, that didn’t make him turn down the offer when Castiel murmured a careful:

“Want you inside.”

“Fuck, yes,” Dean groaned and kissed his thanks into Castiel’s mouth, shifting them over again so he could fumble across for the lubricant tucked away in their side table.

“Dean,” Castiel panted, “you don’t really—”

“Quiet Cas, I don’t care. I’m not going in that way.”

“No, but I can—”

“Cas, I got this,” Dean cut in with the words followed by another kiss to soothe. “I just want slow. I got this.”

“Good, yes, okay,” Castiel was then nodding eagerly as Dean rolled on top of him and eased his first slick finger into Castiel’s hot entrance. The angel groaned and arched into the touch when Dean slid deeper.

Dean continued to slowly and gently prepare Castiel, soft words interspersed with gentle kisses as Dean worked steadily away until Castiel was a writhing mess beneath him, perfectly wrecked and hovering on the knife’s edge of tumbling into ecstasy. Dean relished the look he put in those near black eyes, dark now with untamed lust.

“Please,” Castiel whispered.

Dean didn’t wait to be asked twice and slicked his cock with more lube before positioning himself between Castiel’s raised legs; he hesitated only briefly, but Castiel’s frustrated glare had Dean pressing forward, slipping comfortably into Castiel’s entrance as a loud moan was torn free of Dean’s throat.

Fuck, it was perfect.

The leisurely pace quickened then, the both of them pushed very nearly to the edge, dispensing with the niceties and focusing their new and entirely mutual focus on the release that would follow. Dean pressed forward and Castiel met him thrust for thrust, their bodies working in perfect unison, slipping into familiar intimacy, exactly where they both belonged.

Dean reached between them , feeling himself close to orgasm, and grasped Castiel’s hot, deep-red erection in hand, stroking in time with his thrusts and then, remarkably, they toppled over the edge in unison. Dean gasped when Castiel cried out and then after a few last desperate thrusts, the green-eyed man collapsed onto Castiel’s chest.

Afterwards, once they had both awoken from a light, blissed-out nap, they lay in bed. Dean was staring at the ceiling, one arm over his head, the other curled around Castiel’s shoulder. The angel rested on his side, facing Dean, chin resting against Dean’s shoulder. Cas pressed the occasional soft, teasing kiss against Dean’s throat but made no move to speak. The blue-eyed man seemed content just to bask in the afterglow.

“I can have this?” Dean whispered, half asleep.

“Yes, I promise,” Castiel answered.

“You said you and Gabriel found how to get my Cas and me out of Purgatory?”

“Mmm,” Castiel nodded. He shifted around and reached over to his discarded jeans, rifling through the pockets until he came up with a small bundle. It was a little velvet bag pulled closed with a silken string. He handed it to Dean. Dean balanced it in his palm, the weight almost familiar.

Dean frowned. “What is it?”

“You do realize the quickest way to discover that, right?” Castiel teased.

Dean rolled his eyes and opened the bag, upending it so the object within tumbled onto his open palm. He stared down at it, slightly in awe of the familiar shape that lived with him for thirteen years. “No way. You seriously didn’t comb through a landfill to get this, did you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Castiel scoffed. “I went and got it from Sam.”

“Sammy?” Dean squeaked.

“Yes, Dean. He’s had it all along. You do recall he was the last to leave the room, right?”

Dean didn’t respond, just stared down at the tarnished little amulet that he thought lost to him forever, tossed away in one rash moment on the tail end of a bitterly spat: _It’s useless._

“How is it supposed to help me, though?” Dean closed his hand around it, feeling the small horns bite into his calloused palm.

“You have heard that objects can gather auras onto themselves, right? They carry traces of people who have touched them; that is, if they had a strong affection for the object. This little brass charm is a part of you and continued to be even after you threw it away because Sam kept it as such. It was important for most of your life and I would argue continues to be so, even if you removed yourself from it.

“I imagine, right now, the Sam of your timeline is either wearing it or holding it close, which transfers his energy to it. Gabriel and I deduced, given the strength of your bond with your brother, if you both try at the same time, the force of it may tear open a door which Sam can then use to pull you out of.”

Dean shook his head. “No, Cas, what about everything else that will crawl out with me? How can we risk that, after the hell we went through to get everything back where it belonged? And the bond is between me and Sam, where does that leave my Cas?”

Castiel shook his head slowly and said affectionately, “Dean, have you learned nothing?”

“Hey!” Dean protested automatically, then he thought back to his conversation with Chuck and it clicked. They would act like a chain, with Dean the centre link. Sam to Dean to Castiel and _only_ Sam, Dean and Cas. The bond wouldn’t work with anything else.

“Do you understand now?”

“Y…yeah, but still. How can I know when Sam’s wearing it or holding it? It has to be at the exact same time, right? Or it won’t work?”

“That’s where it becomes challenging,” Castiel admitted.

“I’m listening.”

“I’m going to need to go to Sam. I need to cross the bubble as it were, but there’s no way I could go there physically.”

“Well, I hate to tell you this, Cas, but that doesn’t sound like much of a plan.”

“I’m not done yet,” Castiel said impatiently.

“Please go on.”

“Dream-walking.”

Dean’s eyebrows shot up. “You mean like you did with me?”

Castiel smirked, “Not _exactly_ like with you.”

“Well that’s a relief at least,” Dean winked.

“Gabriel may have to loan me some of his power to make the journey but I should be able to get to Sam and tell him what he needs to do. If I time it exactly with your return to Purgatory I may be able to disrupt the difference in time. It moves different there, right?”

“I don’t know.”

It had seemed to move different, that was for sure, but was it really moving at a slower pace than Earth or did it just feel like that? Dean had at first tried to keep track of days and hours but the light rarely shifted from washed out grey to darker grey to eventual black. There was nothing to track in the sky, no stars that came out at night and no burning sun above their heads just a gradual desaturation of night to day then back again.

He tried to ask Castiel to keep track of the hours, because there was no way Dean was going to sit there counting seconds. Castiel had tried at first, but then his mouth grew pinched and his brow so furrowed that if Dean hadn’t known better he would have sworn the guy had a migraine.

“It’s… difficult. I can’t… It isn’t _letting_ me Dean. Why can’t I?” the angel’s tone had been uncharacteristically desperate, even at his craziest, he hadn’t sounded _desperate_. There was just that one time Castiel had, after he saved Dean from a demon and promised to find Lisa.

God, the fact that Castiel had even said that in the first place should have been Dean’s indication of how much the angel cared about him. Lisa had never been Castiel’s favourite person.

Dean had eased the anxious angel the best he could and told him not worry about it. It didn’t really matter. Castiel had nodded and gone back to scratching Enochian in the dirt.

“I don’t know,” Dean repeated, returning to this time and place and Castiel could only smile sadly.

“We’ll work it out,” the angel promised. “We should sleep.”

“Yeah,” Dean settled back against the pillows. “Hey, ah… Cas?”

“Yes Dean?”

“Can we, um…” Dean wondered if Castiel could see his flush in the dim light of their bedroom. “Could we do some sort of family thing tomorrow? You know, you, me and the boys? I just… I need a good memory to get me through. I’ve a lot of work ahead of me with fixing you in my timeline.”

Castiel shuffled across the short space between them on the bed and squeezed Dean tight around the chest, leaning up and kissing the younger man’s temple. “Of course.”

xx

Dean found himself sadder than he thought he would be when it was nearing time to say goodbye. They had spent the day doing simple family things – a visit to the park, playing in the backyard, and even a board game for goodness sake. It was also, uncomfortably enough, _Sorry_. Apparently John had a fondness for the game. Dean didn’t explain the connection, just played on, silently wincing when Castiel had to send a few of his pawns back to the start. It was also helpful in a way, though; Dean saw what his world’s Castiel had been trying to do back then, explaining without explaining.

“I’m sorry, Dean, you have to go back to the beginning,” Castiel said.

“What?” Dean asked, blinking out of his daze.

John snickered.

Mary was ignoring them; she and Sam were playing on a team, after all, the girl was only four. She kept pushing Sam’s pawns around to where they weren’t supposed to be. Dean admired his little brother’s surprising patience with his daughter. Sam was a damn good dad apparently.

Castiel flashed Dean the playing card he had picked up. “The beginning? I got the card that sends you back.”

“Sends me back,” Dean repeated dumbly.

“Dad, are you all right?” John asked curiously.

“Ah, I’ll be better soon, Kiddo,” Dean answered.

_Dean. It’s time._

Dean quirked an ironic grin. “The card that sends me back, huh? Back to the beginning.”

“Dean?” Castiel asked.

“Dude, you normally don’t suck this much at this game,” Sam said carefully.

“I’m going to check on Jasper,” Dean pushed away from the table and sent Castiel and Sam a significant look. “Then I’ll follow that card. Just give me a minute.”

_All right. Just a minute. Then make your goodbyes, Dean._

“Oh!” Castiel said, eyes widening. “Right, yes.”

xx

Dean felt a little guilty about waking Jasper up, but he wouldn’t leave without saying a proper goodbye. He might not get to meet this little boy again for several years. Jasper had pretty well been the one to get Dean through this ridiculous rollercoaster that had been his life the last weeks.

“Dada?” Jasper muttered sleepily, rubbing his eye and then nuzzling against Dean’s shoulder, half falling asleep again.

“Hey Baby Boy,” Dean murmured. “I just wanted to tell you goodbye and give you one last hug before I go. I’ll see you again though in a few years. Your real daddy will be back soon so it’s not like you’re even gonna notice.”

Jasper lifted his head up, his eyes taking on that impossible age and awareness once again as he met Dean’s gaze. Dean was no baby expert but he was pretty sure kids who weren’t even toddling yet weren’t supposed to have that sort of look to them.

“Better?” Jasper asked.

Dean blinked. “Ah… yeah, yeah. I think I’m better now. I have some work ahead of me, but I can do it. I’m gonna have to if I want to get you.”

Jasper reached out one tiny hand and touched Dean’s chest over his heart once again before settling back against Dean and beginning to coo and sing nonsense – thirteen-month-old once again.

Dean smiled and kissed the baby’s head before settling Jasper back in the crib.

The green-eyed man scrubbed a hand through his hair and sighed before exiting the room. He slapped a grin back on his face and headed to the kitchen, running in and gently tackling John off his seat, hugging the boy close and kissing his cheek.

John giggled and rubbed at his cheek once Dean had released him.

“Dad!” John whined, flashing Dean a miniature and adorable version of Castiel’s scowl, then clamouring back on his seat. Dean danced around the table and gave Sam a noogie, then dropped a kiss on Mary’s curls. He stopped at Cas and took the angel’s hand, pulling him off the chair and flashing the rest of his family a wink.

“We’ll be back in a sec, guys. Johnny, take my turn, then you two can keep going. I’m sure we’ll just be a minute.”

“See you in a few, Dean,” Sam said significantly.

“Dad?” John asked.

“It’s cool, Kiddo. We’ll be back,” Dean said and pulled Castiel behind him, out of the kitchen. When he reached their bedroom he shut the door behind him and pulled Castiel into his arms. Castiel brought his own arms up and around Dean, squeezing tightly and pressing their cheeks together.

“You be safe,” Castiel said sternly.

“’Course,” Dean grinned. “Hey, your real Dean will be back soon, so isn’t this a win for you?”

“I _like_ past you,” Castiel smiled gently. “I have missed him though.”

“Understandable,” Dean nodded. “You remember what we talked about though, all right? Just _talk_ to him. Please don’t keep secrets. I don’t want… It’s dangerous.”

“All right,” Castiel agreed firmly. “I promise. I hope, no, I know, you’ll get this one day, Dean. Don’t forget what you have here. You’ll need it to… to bring me back.”

Dean nodded again.

They stood in one another’s arms, quiet for a few breaths, before Dean took the initiative and leaned down to kiss Castiel deeply. Castiel opened his mouth willingly, his arms tightening their hold around Dean. They pulled back after their short exchange and then Castiel grinned.

“See you on the flip-side,” the angel winked.

That startled a laugh out of Dean. “See you.”

“Don’t forget the pendant,” Castiel said hastily, as if just remembering. Dean patted down his jean pockets before he landed on the pendant, still tucked away in its bag.

“Got it,” Dean nodded. _All right. I’m ready._

_Brace yourself._

Dean felt a tug then, behind his navel, probably close to what was always described in the _Harry Potter_ books when using that teleport thing. It was a jolt and a rush that left him feeling dizzy and out of breath before he came awake.

“You slept for a long time.”

Dean looked over and gasped, shaking in his spot on the hard, damp ground. For one confused moment he was afraid he was back in the dream world, but everything around him just seemed so solid, with none of that floating sort of feeling around him. Just to check, he patted his pocket again and landed on the lump of the charm. They were the clothes he last remembered being in when they first tumbled into Purgatory. His new jacket creaked around him, the firelight reflecting across the leather.

“You needed it,” Castiel added gently.

Dean looked at the angel properly, really looked, and saw somewhat to his surprise that Castiel’s eyes weren’t quite as clouded as they had been in the dream. Castiel seemed to have a better understanding of the world around him. Dean supposed in the real thing, Castiel needed to pull himself, at least somewhat, out of his temporary craziness.

“Hey, Cas,” Dean greeted.

“Hello, Dean.”

“Come here,” Dean said, gesturing with one hand.

“Dean?” Castiel furrowed his brow a little.

“Just come here,” Dean repeated, more insistently.

Castiel scooted towards the hunter, his awkward shuffle evidence that he still wasn’t quite the Castiel Dean had been so familiar with.

“I need you to know, Cas, you and I are solid, all right? That shit? All under the bridge. We’re gonna get out of here and we’re gonna get you better. We have a lot of catching up to do and I’m not letting time slip away again.”

“Dean, I—”

Dean interrupted the angel with a chaste kiss, then pulled him tight to his chest. Castiel startled and was stiff in Dean’s arms.

“You’re important, Cas,” Dean whispered.

Castiel gradually relaxed in Dean’s hold, though his long fingers tightened in the dirty material of the hunter’s shirt.

“Now let’s go home,” Dean said. He closed his eyes, focused as hard as he could, and then with a sigh followed by a crackle and a tear, the sky opened above them.

 

**_The End_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author’s Notes:** This story operates under the ‘secret relationship’ assumption posited by several members of fandom, most notably [pinkandsatiny](http://pinkandsatiny.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr, which can be found [here](http://pinkandsatiny.tumblr.com/post/21187672704/the-secret-relationship-theory-dean-cas-bonus-deans). I recommend reading that, there are very valid points to the Dean/Cas relationship and instances were a potential physical/romantic relationship could be seen as canon. 
> 
> As for my story, I realize that Dean is somewhat out of character, especially in the beginning but given his (what we now know to be a year, Earth time) spend in Purgatory, I don’t think he would come back full of cockiness, badassery or really very coherent. I explain later on why I have rattled!Dean returning from Purgatory versus normal!Dean returning from Hell as we saw in the show (Canon has now disproved this, but I will leave this note here so you can understand my thinking pre-season eight).
> 
> Additionally, many who read my other works will notice that I’m borrowing back stories and characters from my [John’Verse](http://stolen-childe.livejournal.com/84812.html), however, please don’t include this story in the canon of that ‘Verse – this is also explained. And, despite the borrowed details from the John’Verse it does not have to be read to understand this story. Dean is operating in the same headspace as the (unfamiliar) readers are, so necessary explanations are provided. I feel I need to add, there is not and never was any MPREG in this story.
> 
> Lastly, this story was essentially written in a month, so it may not be nice and neatly wrapped or planned out as [Sin with a Grin](http://stolen-childe.livejournal.com/85288.html). Hopefully, the quality is still what many of you are expecting from me but it was written in a literal fraction of the time so I am a little concerned. Though my darling Beta assured me that it was good, so she made me feel much better. Hope you all enjoy as well!
> 
>  **References:**  
>  Sonnet - Shakespeare, William. "Sonnet Number 35"  
> Song - (Sung in fic by both Castiel and Chuck) Groban, Josh. _Illuminations_ , "Hidden Away"  
> Quotation - Gaiman, Neil. _Neverwhere_


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